Mommy Tanner and Daddy Gibbler
by ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: This is an AU fic in which Stephanie is able to get pregnant naturally, with Jimmy Gibbler's baby. There is no absence of the Tanner-Fuller magic in this universe! :) The timeline is apparent within the fic but is the same timeframe of the actual show. I don't want to give too much away, but was desperate to delve into this relationship! :) R and R! :)
1. Chapter 1

**_Author's Note: Hi! This is an AU - as in alternate universe - Fuller House fic where Stephanie is able to get pregnant naturally, with Jimmy Gibbler's baby :) So, basically, this fic is about them and their little family as they go from two to three...and beyond. :) Most every other character is in it too, and there's no absence of the Tanner-Fuller magic in this universe! :) I hope everybody likes it! Please review and let me know what you think! :)_**

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She didn't know how to tell him. She wasn't stalling, not exactly, because if she was, she'd be kissing him with no mercy, holding him tightly to her by the sheer force of her tongue. It was one of their favorite, though not newfound, activities; well, it was hers, and because he's a man, or let's face it, a boy with the face of a man, he was quite fond of it, too. He pulls at her hair, unrushed and soft, spending a weird amount of time on the cartilage of her ear with both his fingers and teeth, not that she minds though, because when he whispered her name, his mouth stroking the corner of her own as he takes a breath, _holy Toledo_ does that ever work for her. _"Stephosorous, you're my little animal, aren't you?"_

Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, unless he wasn't sober, he would vocalize his awkwardness, this odd vulnerability of his, that would mentally announce itself in his head; the embarrassment he felt whenever he'd demote her with sexual phrases or varying nicknames spoken with a kinky accent, to nothing more than what she reveled in, as a whore on a stripper's pole. Damn, how she loves being his _little slut,_ who always, always, gets loved on afterwards, until she falls asleep.

With him holding the reigns, the loving comes a lot sooner than she ever likes, but nonetheless she cherishes it; allowing him to hold her cheeks in his hands, to draw shapes on her inner wrists, or to kiss her like he's the only one who's ever had the pleasure, with a slight territorial edge on the tip of his tongue, as if he _knows_ he's going to be the _only one_ who gets to kiss her for the _rest of her life,_ and knows he doesn't have to say it but so be it because he does anyway, all the time. _"I love you. You're awesome."_

At this very moment though, on this warm day, forecasting rain warnings without conviction – May twenty fifth, 2019 – 4:55 pm – it wasn't kissing going on in this backyard – thankfully too, because the kids were home, although she couldn't help but think _annoyingly,_ as she looked at his face.

A cleaned up five o'clock shadow, burning in the hot amber hues of the sun, full lips rounding the creamsicle he's eating, teeth biting into the frozen cream of the middle instead of her mouth…oh, _wow_ , did she want him to nip at her ear, palm her lower back, where her skin was bare in the design of her shirt; she wanted him to call her his _little Stephanie_ again, because last night it sounded so _innocent_ coming from his mouth, when they were intertwined, clothed, with the lights still on and above the covers.

It was only so stupidly arousing to her now, because she remembered why it was first so stupidly arousing last night.

They'd come home from the Smash Club early, before the others, stumbling out of the Lyft and laughing their asses off about how Britney Spears started off so humble and then went certifiably insane. It really wasn't all that funny, and she inwardly cringed, thinking of it now. _Shit, they were so drunk_. When they managed to get inside much too long afterwards, he'd whispered in her ear that he'd love to take her to bed. Though, he really meant take her _in_ bed, the difference plain in the rumbling of his vocal cords, shaking her to her very core. They'd rolled around, making out like the teenagers they swore they still were, in the same room where she applied her first coat of mascara, and ran the flat iron through her hair every morning before school. It was exhilarating.

When he fumbled with the zipper on her little black dress, aptly labelling her a trick tease, she pulled away and began to strip for him, off the bed, before he pulled her back over. That was when he said it, or, breathed it, raggedly in her mouth, so hotly she could feel the sharpness of his breath in the very back of her throat, his tongue playing roughly with her courage hang-y ball, causing her to gag on his words. _"Keep putting on a little show like that, my sultry little Stephanie, and I'll be seeing to it that you won't be able to walk for the next week."_

The memory made her visibly shiver, _'sultry little Stephanie'_ repeating itself in his lust ridden, sweat soaked moan, inside her eardrums.

"Stephy Dooby Doo? Are you okay?"

Stephanie blinked, once, twice, forcing her boyfriend to look _less_ sexy, so that she would stop looking cold, sitting there, on their picnic blanket in jeans, something she should be anything but cold in, given the weather. Jimmy was luckily still wearing a shirt, with board shorts and a cowboy hat, as if he were at the beach and not in her backyard, looking both out of place and sexy as hell at the same time. _Crap._ She forced herself to think of her dad and swallowed, answering him.

"Yeah, babe, I'm fine. Thanks for asking though, you're sweet."

Jimmy grinned. "Well thank you. You're sweeter though. What were you thinking about? Your eyes were like…glazed over…you haven't been smoking weed have you? God, Steph, remember when we found that weed under my bed in my parents' house? You were so stoned I thought I'd put you in like a marijuana induced trance or something. I was ready to call 911."

He laughed, then so did she, grateful for the lapse in their - what was beginning to be a prolonged, relaxing for him, but agonizingly brutal for her, silence.

"Yeah, I remember. Oh god, that was crazy."

"What was crazy?"

Stephanie looked up at the voice, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the sun. Even before she saw whom the voice belonged to, her gaze zeroed in on the sandwich in his hand. "That looks delicious, could you go inside and get me one, buddy?"

Max eyed her suspiciously, looking down at his sandwich, dripping with mayonnaise, and back at her. "This is a tuna sandwich."

She shrugged. "Yeah, so? It looks crazy good."

"Aunt Stephanie," Max said, waving the sandwich in her face, effectively reducing her to a salivating dog, like Cosmo over his liver treats.

"You hate tuna. Mom loves to tell the story about the time when you spit out your tuna casserole all over Uncle Jesse's dress shirt. He was so mad because that was the only one that wasn't covered in baby spit up, and he had a date with what's-her-name from the ice cream store."

Stephanie sighed. Stupid cravings. But oh, how she loved them, because they were the only tangible thing, aside from the omnipresent morning sickness, which as of yet, she was able to keep a secret, that made her feel like all this was actually _real._

"I know. But in my defense, I was eight and that's what he gets for trying to pick up girls when he's having a day with his nieces. And your palate changes over time. Just think, maybe one day, when you're my age, you'll hate tuna."

Max shook his head as she ruffled his hair. "Not possible," he spoke around a mouthful, and with that, went inside again from where he came, through the back door.

Stephanie almost reflexively put a hand on her stomach, because although there was nothing to feel, or to be seen, she felt tethered somehow, to a part of her body that was foreign to her, being a woman notwithstanding.

Passing it off as removing her sweater, she then grasped for his hand, squeezing it lightly, almost unperceptively, to the untrained eye in tacit gestures or to the virtually unwitting and Jimmy, she knew, was both.

"Babe, I –"

Just then, Kimmy came barging through from where Max had just disappeared. She was holding what looked like twenty gift bags total on both arms, and the dumb grin on her face widened as she talked.

"What are Mommy and Daddy up to this fine afternoon, huh?"

Stephanie was always weary of what was to come out of Kimmy Gibbler's mouth; even as a kid she knew the girl said things that more often than not matched the intent of her outfits: to shock and receive eye rolls, groans, or laughter, depending on the day.

This one, however, deserved a groan, and honestly, a tear or twenty, too, because if Jimmy understood the implication of his sister's proper noun use, then that was it, and all of her anxiety and hatred towards herself for waiting this long would be for nothing, because she hadn't even, in so many words, gotten to tell him on her own. How _she_ wanted to. If only she knew _how_ exactly she wanted to, something she'd still mentally been figuring out, when they were twice interrupted.

"Kimmy!" she hissed under her breath, when Jimmy just stared blankly at his sister. Probably not sure what to think or what to feel, if he was even doing either of those things at all. It was hard to tell.

"Wait, what did you just say? Kimmy what –"

Jimmy stopped, mouth open slightly. "Did you – you're talking to Steph and me, right? But we're not –"

He looked at her, unblinking. "She's not… you're not…right? I mean…you can't. Didn't you tell me that you couldn't?"

Stephanie gave him a soft smile, she couldn't help it. He was just so endearing like that; like a wonderstruck child on Christmas morning in their toddlerhood, old enough to see on top of the mantel on their tippy toes while standing on a step stool, old enough to understand that Santa does exist and that magic is real, because the cookies and milk are both gone. The carrots too. He was looking at her now as if she were a miracle in her own right, sitting there beside him with a half-upturned mouth, and her hand holding his on her flat stomach.

"So you're really…"

"Unless this is all just a very cruel April fool's joke that Kimmy was conveniently in on," she glared at the woman still standing behind them, who mouthed _sorry_ , still smiling though, just like she was.

Jimmy shook his head after thinking for a few seconds. "But it's May. Like, late May."

She squeezed his hand again, and intertwined the one that was still resting on her stomach, with her own. "Exactly."

"Stephoscope, are you joking? No, you're not. You're pregnant!?"

Stephanie nodded vigorously, pressing herself even closer to his hand, hoping that he could feel what she felt just as powerfully - as much love and adoration the world allowed her to have for somebody.

When he moved his hand away and swiftly pulled her tightly to him so that he could kiss her, she knew. His lips upon hers, so soft, yet firm, delicate and sweet, said it all for him. He separated from her after some time, right after Kimmy cleared her throat, and this was either coincidently or not – she hoped it was, because if it weren't, she'd be pissed, because all of the sudden she didn't want to go another minute without him touching her – stupid, lovely, _beautiful,_ hormones.

Grinning like an absolute idiot, she couldn't help but squeal stupidly, and bury her face in his chest; breathing in his scent – a mix of the outdoors and a woodsy cologne, which she made a mental note to ask him about (if it came in body wash too, because what she wouldn't give to inhale that smell on his naked pectorals, to have the steam of the shower cloud any and all other senses, so it was all she was aware of). It reminded her of their first kiss; when she felt safe from any and all harm, in that one shining crystal of time, those few seconds it lasted, that one moment they shared, which was a first of many.

"I love you," she murmured, and hoped that Kimmy had enough sense to leave them be, now.

Jimmy kissed her on the head, running his fingers through her hair, sliding his index fingers in the hoops of her earrings.

"I love you too. So much. You're so awesome, Stephy my love."

Stephanie laughed, but it was quiet and respectful in the intimacy of the moment. _Their_ moment. "You're awesome too, Jimbo.

"Sorry," she said after a few seconds of silence. "That was not a very good one."

"Nah," Jimmy murmured into her hair. "It was. I love those movies. You can be my Michelle Flaherty any time you damn well want."

She laughed again, fisting the material of his red t-shirt as she whispered, "You like those kinds of stories, huh? Okay, I'll give you one. This one time, at summer camp…"

Stephanie proceeded to tell him about the time when her and Gia went back to Camp Lakota to be counsellors when they were seventeen. It was their last night, around eleven, and they'd snuck a bottle of wine out to the lake, intending to sip it on the dock and reminisce about days before, when they were kids. The conversation turned halfway through the bottle, and they began to talk about the time in the sixth grade (for her) and seventh (for Gia) when they absolutely hated each other's guts.

Somehow, though Stephanie couldn't really remember the catalyst, the two girls ended up lying side by side on the wood, their mouths connected; the drunken spells of red wine were sheer and bewitching, cajoling them to kiss longer, tongue and all, underneath the velvety noir of the sky. The next day, they acted as though it never happened, but she swore she could still feel the warm silhouette of Gia's chest overtop her bra, still taste the cheap wine, and the saccharinity of her breath, as lucidly as if it were still happening, right then.

It didn't sway her, though, these sensations that lingered, because even as she thought about the mystery that Gia embodied, the mystery she'd fleetingly been able to touch, she was wistful to be back in the arms of her then-boyfriend, David Cantone.

As she finished her recount of that night, biting her lip and awaiting his reaction, his eyes bulged and he took in a sharp breath.

"Wow, sweetheart, I knew you were a trouble maker growing up, a sidelined child who just wanted some attention that was all her own and nobody else's residual praise or anger, but I hadn't realized it translated into such rebellion. _Sexy_ rebellion, might I add."

She stopped herself from nodding or saying anything to affirm this statement, to say that yes, it was all true, that she'd been craving the attention of her family ever since she stopped being the favorite child, no matter how entitled that sounded, when the person who lovingly called her their _sweet little monkey_ , died tragically when she was only four.

"You tell your sister that her online psychology class is not enough to give her permission to psychoanalyze me."

She laughed it off instead, blaming Kimmy for his assessment of her; she'd rather do that than admit to the face of its truth and doing so in front of the man she may actually consider to be the best love she's ever had. Scratch that, the _only_ love, _real_ love, she'd ever allowed herself to have.

Jimmy leaned forward to kiss her again, and just as their joined motions were becoming languid in the presence of nothing and nobody, except the transitional evening breeze, Kimmy appeared, pushing her hands against the tops of their heads and forcing them apart.

He groaned, looking back at his sister with a glare, and she followed suit with a trite and half-hearted _"how rude!"_ because all too quickly and suddenly, she couldn't breathe, her head dizzy from the increasing humidity and his kiss.

"Seriously, Kimmy?" he asked, shoving her shoulder.

"Don't shoot the messenger! I just came to tell you, at DJ's request, that Mr. T's here and that you two should be getting your lovebird butts inside before the rest of the Motley crew arrives."

Stephanie followed her boyfriend's suit in rising from the blanket, but was momentarily startled by his hand on her arm, trying to take most of her weight onto himself to help her up. She was about to tell him that she didn't need it, forgetting but only for a second, what she's just told him, that is until he rests his hand against her stomach again, with his other hand curled protectively around her lower back.

"Thanks babe," she smiled, kissing his cheek and taking his hand in her own, so that it was no longer on her stomach when they arrived in the kitchen.

It was Memorial Day weekend, and the Fuller's (well, DJ) decided to host the annual barbeque. Everyone was coming, it was going to be a huge affair, so Stephanie thought what better day to announce her news.

"Steph!"

"Dad, how are you?" she asked, the obligation to be cordial blending in with her legitimate excitement in seeing her father. She almost blurted it out right then, seeing his open expression, his pride so transparent, written on the fairness of his papery skin, in a beaming smile.

"I'm good, great, actually. How are you, honey? And Jimmy?" he added as a smooth afterthought, reaching over to shake her boyfriend's hand.

He was still a Gibbler, and Danny Tanner would forever be cautious with offering up any affection towards one, even if that particular Gibbler was the man his daughter loved.

"I'm amazing, Mr. T. Thanks for asking," Jimmy grinned at him, and Stephanie almost had to elbow him in the ribs for acting way too jovial, enough to raise suspicion.

"I'm good, Dad. Um, isn't DJ making the coleslaw? I think I'll go help her. How about you come too, babe?"

"Sure sweetie," Jimmy answered her, turning away from her father and heading into the kitchen, grabbing for her hand again as she came up beside him after excusing herself a second time, albeit more awkwardly than the first, leaving Danny to raise his eyebrow at her and shrug as he went to answer the ringing doorbell.

"It's always open!" she couldn't resist calling out, hearing her sister's echo a beat before she heard the commotion of people and saw DJ at the kitchen counter, placing salad tongs in the large pottery bowl filled with coleslaw dressed for days.

"Wow, overboard much?" Stephanie asked, plucking a grated carrot from the bowl and putting it into her mouth. "Do you want us all to gain fifty pounds?"

"Actually, I think Dad could use it. He's looking a little thin these days."

"Dad's always been a lanky guy. Cool your jets, Deej," she said, this time taking a whole spoonful of salad.

Stephanie saw the smile DJ gave her as she watched her pile the salad into her mouth, but noticed how she didn't say anything.

Half an hour later, the entire family, and those whom they'd consider family, were crowded in the backyard; nursing mojitos made with sprigs from the mint plant Max had grown in his farm project, engaged in inane, tangential conversations with one another, laughing about nothing in particular, smiling if only to show that they were having a good time, happy to be surrounded by such a crazy amount of love and taking in the scene around them, a scene which they were vitally apart of.

Stephanie was in the last category, sipping on a virgin mojito of club soda and lime, with a sad, droopy mint leaf floating alongside the slice. She's been hyper aware of Jimmy next to her, his arm looped around her waist and his hand once again seeking solace below her belly button.

DJ leaned over to whisper into her ear. "Does Jimmy – oh." She looked fondly, almost enviously, unless Stephanie was imagining things, at Jimmy's hand there. "Are you gonna tell everyone else today? Wasn't that the plan? Once Jimmy knows…"

She nodded. "Yep. That is the plan." Giving DJ a wry smile, she sighed, very nervous suddenly. Her sister gave her a thumbs up and Stephanie breathed out, poised to speak.

"Hey, everyone?" She tried again. "Guys?"

Her attempts were feeble, and she knew this, trying to shake it off and let everybody else in on their little secret. She feared that if she told them, that it would all disappear, or she'd wake up and realize it was all a dream. She wanted to stay in their bubble for a little while longer, but knew it was only a matter of time.

Stephanie put two fingers in her mouth and blew, gaining everyone's shocked, undivided attention, if only for a few seconds. She smiled. "I – I um – have something to tell you guys."

For effect, staring into all the rapt gazes of all the people – or most of the people - she loved, she covered Jimmy's hand on her belly, her smile growing exponentially. "A Gibbler got me pregnant and what's scary is I'm actually _very happy_ about it."

She heard Jimmy laugh and felt him pull her in closer to kiss her temple. "Shut up," he mumbled against her head.

"That joke is so old. You love me, so just get used to the idea already. Things that I do, including having various pet names for you, Steph-a-getti, make you _very happy_ alright," he purred, and she felt an oncoming urge that had the punch of a freight train, to feel those words reverberating along the roof of her mouth, with teeth chattering force, instead of hearing them inside her ear like she was.

Because of her wording, she guessed, the news took a bit longer to sink in. Her dad got it first. "Stephanie, are you serious!? I'm gonna be a grandpa for a fourth time!?"

"Yep," she said, starting to get teary now. She still couldn't believe her luck, how surreal this all was.

"Oh my god," Becky covered her mouth with her hand and squeezed Jesse's with the other. "Steph, I thought – "

"Me too," she sighed. "It's a high risk pregnancy, for sure, but we'll be okay."

At her admission, she felt Jimmy's hand massage light circles, and his physique tense up next to her. "What do you mean ' _high risk'?_ Are they – is the baby gonna be okay? Are you?"

"We'll be good, babe," Stephanie assured him. "We just have to be watchful for my body signs, and if any flags go up, to see our doctor right away."

"Done," Jimmy told her, kissing her cheek then moving affectionately downwards to do the same to her belly. "I'm going to do everything I can to lessen your stress. You and our baby will be waited on hand and foot. I promise."

This received a chorus of awes and hands-to-hearts, but Stephanie shook her head. "No, I just need you to be there for me, mentally. But I guess if that means getting up to make me a tuna sandwich with extra mayo at three in the morning, then yeah, go ahead, wait on me."

She leaned in close to whisper. "I have one rule. You can _only_ obey my every command in boxers and _nothing else_. And leave your bedhead," she smirked. "Because it's sexy as hell."

"Your wish is my command, sweetheart," he chuckled, chastely kissing her lips as everyone erupted into a second round of congratulatory hugs, cheek kisses, and claps on the back.

"So, Steph, how far along are you?" Becky asked later on, while biting into her hamburger, and when Jimmy looked at her expectantly, as did everybody else, her stomach turned.

She put down her burger and cast her eyes downwards, staring at the pool of ketchup and mustard that had spurted out with every few bites she had taken. "A month. Well, technically six weeks…" she finally looked up at her boyfriend, who was now looking at her in surprise, visibly hurt.

"And you just told me now?"

"Babe I – "

Jimmy shook his head, stubbornly denying her physical requests for affection, taking pleasure, it seemed, in unstitching their sewn fingers. He left the kitchen in silence, saying nothing upon his exit, except her name, short and abrupt, when she pleaded for him to listen and to let her explain.

"Not now, Stephanie, okay?"

There was a lengthy and awkward moment when nobody spoke, the cunctation in conversation heavy with tension and heated words silenced, portent of an upcoming fight between them.

He never calls her Stephanie. Ever since they've gotten to know each other on that deeper level, more intimately than she's ever known anybody, he's stopped doing it. Even when he was mildly angry or upset with her, it would only ever be an exasperated or argumentative _"Steph"_ depending on his mood and the nature of their fight. She knew this was bad, and found herself wishing he'd call her anything else, any one of his myriad of play-on-words nicknames would do.

"Jimmy!" she called after him, standing ungracefully from her chair, leaving it untucked, an action that she knew would make both her father and sister cringe, but that was something she couldn't afford to worry about. She didn't want to, either. The drive of compulsion (in that sense, anyway, _others_ though, were a different story altogether) wasn't a part of her, nor did she have any desire for it to be.

She'd been told time and time again that she was just like her mother, the opposite of her father in the way she tossed jackets onto furniture when she came through the door, kicked off her shoes just after the matt, not before, and in the way she made enormous, stake-holding decisions without thinking it through all the way. Like _not_ telling her boyfriend she was pregnant with his baby, for much longer than was probably seen as ethical.

"Steph, wait." DJ pulled on her arm, keeping her there.

"Why didn't you tell him when you first found out? Why didn't you tell anybody, if not him? Why go through it alone? You didn't have to. Even if you didn't want Jimmy there at the time…you know you can trust me. You always have me. Use me."

Stephanie stared at her sister, who was staring back at her with a searching curiosity, intermingling with the sadness she freely showed within the sparkling of her irises, at the brink of tears.

"Deej," she said, her tone of voice soft, compassionate, or so she hoped it was.

"I'm so, so, sorry. Jimmy should be hearing this too, but now I see that you need to hear it first. I didn't tell anyone, not even the father, not even _the love of my life,_ that I was pregnant because I was afraid. Afraid that this was all a pipe dream, that miscarriage was the inevitable, so why should I get everybody else worked up over me and excited about a baby that may never even get to be? I was told that I'd never be able to get pregnant, because my womb is an inhospitable environment. Figures right? The middle child always gets the short end of the stick."

She caught herself sounding slightly bitter at that, and tried to actively change her tune.

"So, anyways, I get pregnant. Or at least that's what seven positive tests tell me. So, I go to my doctor, and she tells me too, in this calm, but cheery voice, covering her hand with mine. I wanted to tell you Deej, right at that moment in her office, I wanted to call you. I wanted to make it home before I saw Jimmy and tell him in some clichéd, _guess who's gonna be a number one daddy_ , type of way, but I couldn't. Because I wasn't pregnant, because it wasn't possible. I kept telling myself: 'Stephanie, you might be pregnant today, doesn't mean you will be tomorrow, or next week. Your womb isn't meant for a baby to live there, remember? It's _inhospitable.'_ "

She took a big breath, feeling DJ's hand rubbing soothingly in little circles on her back, the way she always did when they were kids, when her younger sister was upset. She gained strength from it and continued.

"That word gave me nightmares for months, since I first heard it in the context of me and its ability to ruin my chances of conceiving. But it was especially terrifying in those weeks that nobody knew. Those first weeks of my pregnancy. I couldn't talk to anyone about my fears, or my joy, not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't have the strength. I knew if I told anyone, I'd break, and I knew if I broke I wouldn't be able to reign my fantasy in, and I'd be completely and utterly dead inside if something ever happened to my baby. It would be because of me. I'd jinxed it by telling people. So nobody could know."

"I'd roll over in the morning to see Jimmy asleep beside me, and I'd run my hand through his hair, while biting my tongue, because every damn morning, when I woke up, I wanted to tell him. Then I'd walk downstairs, and see you Deej, making breakfast for all of us, and your amazing boys with their rumpled pyjamas and sleepy faces and I'd bite my tongue even harder. It was torture for me. And Jimmy doesn't see that. He just sees that I kept it a secret from him, like I betrayed him somehow. Which I guess I did."

"Oh Stephanie," DJ cooed, hugging her close, and much too tight. "I completely understand you. And I'm sure Jimmy does too. He just needs some time to process it all, and see your side. I promise he will."

Stephanie shook her head. "I'm not so sure. Once again, Stephanie Tanner fucks up a really amazing thing by acting like an idiot."

"Language," Jesse chided, covering Nicky and Alex's ears as he winked at her, obviously trying to get her to smile.

"Sorry," she mumbled in response, cracking a little smile to make her uncle feel like his efforts were validated. "I just don't think Jimmy can love me anymore. Not like he did before. I've completely blindsided him."

"Stephanie!" Her name was blanketed by a warm gasp, and she turned her head towards its sound, seeing Jimmy standing just inside the door to the kitchen. He came towards her urgently, as if he feared her disappearance into thin air if he didn't touch her quickly enough.

He took both of her hands in his, pulling her up from her chair, where she'd sat again, so that they were eye to eye. His irises had a luminescence to them, a miniature halo of shine, making their milky chocolate color seem almost prismatic. There was a tender empathy there and the love he had for her was at the forefront of his expression; adorned on his lips as he kissed her, on his hands as he touched her, and in his muscles as he held her close.

"I would never stop loving you, or love you any less. You have to know that you're my whole heart, Stephy Bear. You do know that, right? You and our baby, now."

Struggling to emotionally find her footing against the strong current of _awes_ pushing her further away from any coherent thought, Stephanie sighed. She remembered the first time he'd called her _Stephy Bear._

It was a few months ago, close to Christmas, and she'd decided to go out for one last Christmas cocktail with the girls before the holiday hoopla was kicked into overdrive and the pubs would be packed with two types of people; the distressed mothers with a shopping list miles long, set on giving up on Christmas tradition altogether, because they couldn't find that be-all-end-all present their children had been heavily hinting about, the 'hint' being that it was the only thing written in all capitals with twenty exclamation points following it; and the complying gold-star husbands, goading the bartender into making many rounds of stronger drinks, because it would be the only way they'd get through the holiday season with their insufferable in-laws and their problematic attitudes.

She could remember wearing this little black number she'd gotten in a trendy shop in downtown London, pairing it with a crème buttoned coat that went down to her knees and boots that fully covered her calves. He'd seen her and told her that she looked hot before she left, and in response to his blandishment, she left a red imprint of her mouth on his cheek, and the scent of her perfume in his nostrils.

DJ being DJ made them promise to cap it at three drinks per person, but even before the restriction was put in place, she knew she wanted to have a hell of a lot of fun that night. And limiting herself wasn't going to allow her to do that. So she wouldn't. And didn't.

A couple hours later, the three of them were dancing obnoxiously to Abba and Michael Jackson, jean jacket-clad in their minds and singing loudly, with sharp high notes, in their hearts. The booths and tables beside them weren't filled with people, though it was considerably busier than they'd anticipated, and Stephanie suddenly couldn't control her flailing limbs as they crashed into others, the rhythm she'd possessed naturally as a dancer no longer there. Total inebriation had stolen it from her, waved it in front of her face, but far enough away so that she couldn't get a hold of it, taunting her. Her intoxication mocked her, as her brain admonished it for making her say foolish, stupid things. Things she'd regret tomorrow. But it didn't stop.

This led to DJ and Kimmy shouldering practically her entire body weight when they left the pub and then again when they got out of the cab and walked up their driveway, slowly, careful not to jostle her too much.

She was surprised to see him there, sitting on the couch. She couldn't help but want to scold him for it. So she did, because roughly five glasses of wine and four shots of vodka were surging through her blood, and with them she felt careless, too invincible to give a fuck about what was right and what was wrong.

 _"_ _What is a Gibbler doing on my couch?"_

 _His smile faded then at her tone, and what replaced it was a confused arch of his eyebrows, which funnily enough made him look years her junior, like a teenage boy._

 _"_ _Steph, I – you told me to wait here for you. I'm staying over tonight, remember?"_

 _Crossing her arms, she shook her head. "And why are you staying here? With me? Presumably in my bed?"_

 _Jimmy, it seemed, had only one response to that, a response that, for some reason which was ludicrous in the moment but looking back made complete and total sense, an actual term defining committed couple cohabitation._

 _"_ _We're dating. We've been dating for over a year now." He stopped. "Are you…okay? Are you drunk?"_

 _"_ _Bingo, little boy!" she exclaimed, a choppy laugh bubbling from her lips, stopping just as abruptly as it started._

 _"_ _But seriously,_ _ **Kimmy.**_ _Just leave me here, because I need to sleep or_ _ **I'll die.**_ _Deej, where are the_ _ **best**_ _nephews_ _ **ever**_ _because I wanna kiss them all goodnight! There's Jackson, Max and Tommy and Cosmo. All four of them."_

 _"_ _Cosmo's the dog," Kimmy said, rolling her eyes and dropping Stephanie's arm, sending her half sprawling towards the couch. Without her sister holding up her other arm, she'd be there already, right next to Kimmy's younger brother._

 _"_ _Come on Steph," DJ cooed, forever the level-headed, calm motherly type, attempting to drag her drunk ass to bed. "Let's get you a glass of ice water." Or not._

 _"_ _Okay, but for real you guys, what is Jimmy Gibbler doing here?"_

 _"_ _Stephanie, for the second time, you two are in a loving, exclusive, and because you're really drunk and so I'm banking on you not remembering this, disgustingly affectionate, relationship."_

 _Stephanie stuck her tongue out, mimicking the one of many faces she'd make at or along with DJ's middle child, Max, (and her favorite, but that's a secret), when he was not feeling well, or just generally unhappy. It always made him laugh, or at least crack a smile, but now, it held a different purpose of expressing her disbelief and slight disgust at the mere notion of dating, let alone_ _ **kissing**_ _Jimmy Gibbler._

 _"_ _We are not."_

 _"_ _Oh yes you are. You, Stephanie Tanner, are dating Jimmy Gibbler, the sweet, caring, sensitive one of the family. And let me say that you two are beyond annoying, but also beyond adorable," Kimmy told her, pushing the glass of water DJ had set down a minute ago towards her. "Sober up honey, you'll remember."_

 _Despite the scepticism she was feeling, Stephanie drank the water anyways, figuring it wouldn't hurt to flush the alcohol out of her system, because the height of her drunkenness was wearing off, and a debilitating exhaustion was setting in, hammering its presence into her skull, like a surprise hangover that ambushes you, coming with a vengeance you hadn't known them to possess, the_ _ **afternoon**_ _after._

 _After having another glass, only because she was pestered relentlessly by her sister, she could barely sit up, swept into the spinning tornado of combined nausea and tiredness. With her vision becoming blurry, she almost didn't register somebody picking her up and wrapping her legs around their hips like they would a young child. She saw masculine shoulders, distinctive from a woman's only because they were a slightly sturdier build, and a funky printed dress shirt._ _ **Jimmy.**_

 _"_ _Wait, Gibbler. Where are we going?"_

 _She could feel the vibrations of his laughter. "To bed, Steph. Just go with it, okay?"_

 _She didn't have the energy or persistence it took to fight with him about it. "Okay. But just this once. Never again. And you are_ _ **not**_ _getting a kiss goodnight."_

 _Again, Jimmy laughed. "You're adorable when you're drunk. Funny, too."_

 _"_ _Am not," she argued, just for the sake of arguing, because as she knew it, and what she could remember from her childhood, arguing with a Gibbler was what it took to be a part of the Tanner family, or at least, in DJ's case, contesting their general presence in the house or elsewhere every once in a while, because usually wherever they were, they were assumedly unwelcome, if not obviously, then it was definitely thought._

 _"_ _You are." For one reason or another, she craved a response from him and fought to get one._ _ **"You're**_ _adorable when you're drunk._ _ **And**_ _funny."_

 _"_ _Actually, I'm not. I'm a sloppy drunk. And you can attest to this, sweetheart. I know you've seen it. Remember, the Halloween party Ramona and Jackson had for all of their teeny bopper friends? I tripped over the sill of the sliding back door and fell face first into the wet grass?"_

 _She giggled quietly but all she was thinking about was his use of the phrase 'teeny bopper' and how it dated them, in comparison to all the other descriptors he could have used._

 _"_ _I can't believe you just said that."_

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _Teeny bopper."_

 _"_ _Teeny bopper?"_

 _"_ _Yeah."_

 _"_ _Why?"_

 _Stephanie sighed, laying her head on his shoulder, finding it strangely comfortable._ _ **How annoying.**_

 _"_ _Because it makes me think about The Bangles and Monopoly and when a game of truth or dare was like 'I dare you to squirt a whole can of whipped cream in your mouth' and not a competition to see who could get the closest to death by being stupid. It just takes me back, that's all."_

 _"_ _Me too. My mom would tease Kimmy when she'd put on her stripper eyeshadow, that blue sparkly stuff, and call her a rebelling teeny bopper who's going off the rails, and she'd turn to me and tell me to stop growing."_

 _"_ _My dad had Michelle, so he never really worried about me growing up. And DJ was his first born, so of course he got all crazy when she did all that stuff. Not me though. Not as much."_

 _"_ _Awe Steph," Jimmy murmured, running his hand down the back of her head, and it wasn't until her eyes shut that she realized it was supposed to be a soothing mechanism, and that her speech was slurred with the fading of consciousness, and that she actually felt comfortable, flushed with an attraction that came from offside. "I'm going to put you down now, okay?"_

 _She hadn't noticed until now, but they were in her bedroom and the door had been shut. Her bed looked so warm and inviting, beckoning to her with its quilted hand, humming the words_ _ **'sleep Stephanie…'**_ _across the small distance between them, like a wood burning fire in the dead of winter, like a freshwater lake in the tail end of spring. Something so tempting._

 _Except her stupid dress was still on. It didn't matter how desperate she was for sleep to take her. She wasn't sleeping in that. Except she had no energy to take it off. She had no control over her body anymore and what little of it she may have had before was in the heavy clutches of paralyzing exhaustion._

 _"_ _Jimmy could you, maybe –"_

 _She felt a faint blush rise to her cheeks, but somehow could tell it wasn't there_ _ **because**_ _he was undressing her. It was there because of the_ _ **anticipation**_ _of him undressing her. It wasn't embarrassment that warmed her skin, it was a small, hot rush of excitement._

 _"_ _Is that better?" he asked when she was down to her bra and underwear._

 _"_ _Much. Thank you."_

 _She curled up underneath the covers, but right away felt an absence. A tingle that zinged down her spine and a flurry of hyperactive butterflies when he touched her shoulder in a bid of goodnight, told her all she needed to know. This time, it_ _ **wasn't**_ _so annoying._

 _"_ _Hey, Jimmy? Wait. Stay here with me, would you? I –um – have this feeling I don't sleep as well alone anymore."_

 _He chuckled. "Well considering the facts, I'd say that's pretty accurate. It's like I don't remember what sleeping without you is like. For the last year and a half, you've been curled against my chest, your hair up in that bun, and still to this day, I don't know how it doesn't give you a total headache."_

 _He kissed her head as he climbed in next to her, and she found herself almost automatically relaxing against him, but there was a part of her, and she felt it strongly, that_ _ **wanted**_ _to be that close to him._

 _"_ _I don't know, it just doesn't. If my hair's down, it itches me and gets in the way. Speaking of which, there's –"_

 _Jimmy reached over towards the nightstand, fisting the elastic in his palm._

 _"_ _An elastic band on the nightstand, right next to your reading glasses and chap stick, because your lips get dry no matter the time of year."_

 _"_ _Wow. Yeah," Stephanie said, allowing him to pull her hair up off of her shoulders._

 _"_ _Stephanie, I know you. Just accept that, okay?"_

 _He kissed the back of her neck after finishing her hair, tying the elastic around it two times, so it wasn't too loose at one, but not too tight at three, either_ _ **. Impressive.**_

 _"_ _Yeah, well I know that you love Lucky Charms but hate Alphabets, and that you can't watch the news before bed because you're convinced it gives you second hand PTSD, even though I keep trying to tell you that that's not a real thing._

 _"_ _And I know that one time, when you were fourteen, you drove your brother's car into the mailbox when you were trying to back it out of the driveway. And when your mom got home and saw what happened, she made him pay for the damages, because even though you were the one who wrecked his car,_ _ **he**_ _was the one who asked you to move it across the street, because he was too lazy to do it himself when she asked."_

 _She hadn't known what convinced her to say those things. Or what area of her brain knew those things. But she did. "And I also know that there's at least one thing you don't know about me."  
_

 _He was silent for a minute. Then two. And then she thought he may have fallen asleep, before he finally said something. "What's this? I've never noticed it before."_

 _It was a wonder why she hadn't registered the sensation earlier, his fingertips delicately tracing her ribcage, but now that she had, her breath caught in her throat. "I was going to say you don't know that I once smoked a cigarette."_

 _Jimmy stopped his hand, lying his palm flat on her bones. "Girl's bathroom, sixth grade. Peer pressure."_

 _"_ _Damn," she cursed, and then, as he kissed her neck again, "I was drunk."_

 _"_ _Just like you are now?"_

 _"_ _Just like I am now," she answered, although she realized then the words had little truth to them because the slow set-in of sobriety was beginning; her headache was letting up, the dizziness was disappearing, and she felt confident enough to walk to the bathroom, but was just too lazy to prove it._

 _He resumed in his fascination with her skin, drawing lines over its gauntly vampire hue, the hot weather having yet to work its magic, because Jimmy's favorite strapless black bikini was still buried in her drawer under mounds of underwear, bras, and socks. She could feel him making his way from one rib to the other, and circling there. "It's a bear."_

 _"_ _Not just any bear. It's Mr. Bear. Don't you see the trench coat and hat?"_

 _"_ _Oh, yeah…" He chuckled and that embarrassed her. Oddly enough, she hadn't been defensive when he'd first seen it, allowing him to take it in, in all its glory, but now, she was. Pulling away from his embrace, and his violating fingers, she curled into herself on the opposite side of the bed._

 _"_ _It's adorable, sweetheart," he said, at the same time she blurted: "I was drunk and missing my mom, okay? It was her fortieth birthday."_

 _Jimmy didn't allow for the societally agreed upon silence that tributes a tragedy, because he hated pauses, awkward or otherwise. He was a Gibbler who loved to gab, even if only to fill the void that others would be afraid to, in case of saying the wrong thing._

 _"_ _Oh man, Steph. That's rough. But I mean it, it looks cute on you. Cuter than cute."_

 _He leaned over to kiss it and murmured something under his breath. Something she couldn't hear. Only feel. When she asked him to repeat it, she wasn't sure he'd even heard her, but he did anyway, seeming to marvel in the words he spoke the same way he did her tattoo._

 _"_ _My little Stephy Bear."_

 _Stephanie almost felt like crying but held it in. She pulled his face up to hers by his hair, gently, and when he made eye contact with her, his expression was kind, soulful. She pressed her mouth to his, and when he wrapped his arms around her waist the best he could and laid them back down, she felt cocooned, safe and protected, like a caterpillar changing soon into a butterfly. It was a vulnerability that she couldn't shake by changing the subject, or putting the focus onto someone else; she could feel him in form in the most guarded of places: deep within the veins of her beating heart._

 _Right now, his kiss, his love for her, was what sustained her consciousness in this world. It felt like, to her, that they'd known each other for even longer than they've had lives, although the logical side of her knew that wasn't possible. When he mumbled it against her lips again, she felt its accent of affection on her tongue._

 _"_ _I love you, Stephy Bear."_

 _As he drew random shapes with his fingers along her back, she could feel herself falling asleep and "I love you too" were her last words before her hand went slack while clutching his cheek._

Stephanie shook her head, pulling herself out of the reverie. That same crushing vulnerability came over her again, and for a frightening moment, she thought that maybe her mojito had alcohol in it after all, her own mistake. But then she remembered it was DJ who'd made the mojitos, and she'd given her a wink when she'd given Stephanie hers. Stephanie Judith Tanner was never vulnerable. At least, not when she could help it. It was annoying. Jimmy Gibbler was annoying.

The fact that he was calling her _that_ nickname was physically _killing_ her. It made her think of her tattoo of Mr. Bear on her ribcage, it made her think of him touching it, asking questions about it, and then, the two of them, making out in the shadow of the trees ricocheting off the glass of her window pane; the moonlight making her, an emotional mess of a woman, who's a _little_ drunk, look like a fairy tale princess locked away in the tower, and he, the prince who'd come to save her, from herself.

"I do know that," she whispered faintly, sighing as he hugged her close. "I do."

When he looked at her with wide, pleading eyes, there was something childlike about it, and she found herself envisioning a little boy – _their_ little boy – staring up at her five years from now, hoping for a cookie before dinner or to be exempt from a timeout. _"Please, Mommy, pretty pleeeease?"_

This thought wasn't perverse, it wasn't how she'd meant it. Not at all. What she saw when she looked at Jimmy, begging silently for her to understand, was his boyishness and within that boyishness, suddenly she could see their son, with the same ruffled hair, same goofy, innocent grin, talking a thousand miles a minute. It made her smile.

Just as quickly as the image appeared to her, as if bestowed upon her by an oracle or some god, it disappeared, and she just saw Jimmy again, a soft smile shaping his mouth in response to hers.

"Now give me a Gibbler Nibbler," she said, biting her bottom lip as he laughed and rubbed his nose against hers in an Eskimo kiss.

Just as she parted her lips, readying herself for a deep kiss, that left little to the imagination of their audience, he bent down, and she found herself protesting this, that is, until his nose was pressed into her stomach.

"What are you doing? All I wanted was a kiss!"

She watched as he Eskimo kissed her belly, though this one was teeming with a different type of affection, a _fatherly_ affection, she realized, and knew that this would keep happening, that she would get taken aback by the surprise of it, the miracle of it, at least for eight more months; until the day she held her baby, her child, her flesh and blood, hers and Jimmy's, in her arms. If she were to be honest with herself, it would probably keep happening way past that, growing, and much too quickly for her liking, into bursts of overwhelming emotion – an overflow of tears at every birthday, right in front of their friends, or an outpouring of cuddles and kisses, _also_ right in front of their friends, on any given day, at any moment.

"Oh," she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. "Did you just give our baby a Gibbler Nibbler?"

"Of course. Only people who I love and who are awesome get them. Our child will never go without them. A Gibbler Nibbler solves everything. As you've shown me," he winked and she giggled, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

"They sure do, babe. But can I have a kiss now please?"

"You sure can. A real good one too because you were patient."

She began to laugh, but his mouth obstructed the noise, and sinking into his kiss and body were as effortless an action as breathing, their tongues coming together the same natural way best friends linked arms as they walked beside one another, both appreciating the other person and the love between them, given and received.

When they broke apart after a moment too long, he lingered there, his nose being the last part of him that touched her, along with the breath of his words: "I love you. So much."

"I love you too," she said as quietly as he had.

"Jimmy, I'm awesome, right?" Kimmy asked her brother.

Stephanie snickered. "Can I answer this?"

"Zip it Tanner," Kimmy said, then, to Jimmy. "Seriously. We have the same DNA. If you're awesome, then by the definition of DNA, I'm awesome, too."

"That's the definition of _biology,_ and I don't think awesomeness is a genetic quality," DJ told her, and Stephanie laughed.

"What are you getting at here, _Kimberly?"_

Kimmy bristled at the use of her given name and glared at her, the exact reaction Stephanie was hoping for.

"Well, _Stephanie,_ I just wondered. Because if I am in fact awesome, and I'm loved, which is practically an obligation because I'm his sister, then I should be in recede of a famous Gibbler Nibbler. It's my name too, after all."

This time, it was DJ who laughed. "Kimmy, it's in receipt of, not recede."

"Like a receipt from the grocery store. Not like Uncle Jesse's hairline," Stephanie said, watching Becky hide her laughter behind her hand as Jesse fixed her with a withering stare.

"Well, whatever. Same thing," Kimmy shrugged. "But the point is, I'm feeling left out here."

"Kimmy, the first time you saw Jimmy give me a Gibbler Nibbler, you told me we literally were _not_ the cutest. I saw your face. You were weirded out. And the next time you were mocking how Jimmy and I did it."

"Oh. You heard that? I totally thought I was in the clear because you two were so into each other that you hadn't even registered what I said. Seriously. And yeah, I was mocking you – and you hated it – but you guys really are annoying. But also sweet. And I like sweet. "

"Mom," Ramona cut in, before Stephanie could reply. "I love Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Stephanie as much as everybody else here – and Auntie DJ." She stopped for a beat, then continued, seeming to find her stride again, and Stephanie wondered why she'd done that in the first place.

It was almost like she'd caught herself saying something she shouldn't have, and thought about how to make people forget she'd said it, or at least distract them from it. Just like the time she swore in front of Max; she stubbed her toe on the edge of the couch, and what came out of her mouth was a small intake of air through her teeth and a pain-stricken, apt, though not appropriate, _fuck._ She'd seen Max standing there a few seconds later, and grinned, striking up a lame conversation about dinosaurs that for some reason had him riveted, and the thought of telling his mom about when Ramona hurt herself and swore _in front of an eight year old_ was way away from his mind.

Stephanie though, couldn't shake the small pause in Ramona's speech before she conversely moved on. ' _Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Stephanie'_ _ **pause**_ _and Auntie DJ_ _ **pause**_

"– **_resume_** But _I_ don't want one of those. And I never will, because I don't know, just like, touching noses with another person is weird, it just feels weird, you know?" Ramona shivered. "Forget it."

It seemed like DJ noticed Ramona's odd dialogue pattern too, because she shot Stephanie a look, as if to say: _'huh? What was_ _ **that**_ _about?'_

According to DJ, Ramona hadn't called her Auntie since she'd politely requested that Kimmy stopped calling her Peanut when she was ten years old. So clearly, it was weird for her to be doing it now.

"Mom, I'm sure if you really wanted one, Uncle Jimmy would give you one. But you'll regret it. Trust me on this."

"It's true Kimmy. I mean, not that you'll regret it, because I'm a pro at Gibbler Nibblers – they're _my thing,_ after all, but it's true that I'll give you one. _Just_ one though."

"Okay, this conversation is turning down a really weird path…like one we should only be taking if we've all had like four glasses of wine. Each. It's _The Road Not Taken."_

Jimmy chuckled, turning to look at her, and winked. "You can only have one, sister of mine, because the rest are reserved for this sweetheart of mine."

She giggled, and then turned away from him, physically encroaching in on Kimmy now.

"You wanted one, now come get one," she said to the other woman, but Kimmy began backing away to her amusement, then Jimmy joined in on the taunt.

"My nose is ready when yours is."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ramona visibly cringe and DJ cover her mouth, watching, like the rest of them, with expressions of barely contained laughter.

"Okay, I take it back. I take it back!" she began to squeal as Stephanie got closer, and Kimmy was now blocked in by the countertop. "Besides, you're not even a Gibbler yet so you're not licenced to be giving them and Stephanie just get your nose out of my face or I swear to – "

Stephanie backed off, confused. _'What's that supposed to mean? I'm not a Gibbler_ _ **yet?'**_ _And Ramona calling me Aunt Stephanie? But she called DJ her aunt too, so maybe it was just a slip in the moment? A generalization? It's weird.'_

It may have been weird, but no matter how so, in true Stephanie Tanner fashion, she didn't ask about it. She'd wait until it was brought up by someone just as observant. Nobody said anything. In fact, everyone was strangely quiet. It seemed like the fun had stopped.

"Let's just say you said uncle," Stephanie said, then, to change the subject because she didn't want to dwell on it anymore, "is anybody else still starving? Or is that just me?"

Everybody laughed.

"Nope. Just you, Steph," Kimmy said and she sighed, staring longingly at the leftover patties on the plate, which sat on the counter a mere few inches from where she stood right now.

"Ugh. I'm gonna get so fat," she moaned, begrudging her lack of willpower. "I didn't even say no to a couple scoops of ice cream when I _wasn't_ pregnant."

"Don't even start," DJ told her. "Do you even realize –"

"Of course I do," Stephanie said, palming her stomach, feeling Jimmy's hand there now, too. "I'm so lucky – _we_ are so lucky – and this baby can make me gain fifty pounds, I don't even care, so long as it's healthy."

 _ **A/N: It's me again! Please let me know what you think! :) It is, in case you haven't already figured that part out, a multi-chapter fic! :)**_


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: Just to let you guys know, italics is flashbacks! (In case that wasn't clear!) Again please R and R! :)_**

* * *

 ** _Five months later_**

It was Halloween, and just like _every other_ holiday, Halloween was one that 'held a special place' in DJ's heart, and by somewhat forced extension, on account of the older kids, her children's.

Stephanie liked Halloween as much as the next slutty cop or sexy nurse, and even as a child, her staple rabbit costume won the hearts of all the neighbors, her cornfield hair peeking slightly out of her bunny ears, only ever enhancing her demeanor of a sweet little girl turned hyped up sugar fiend.

This year, she was neither a slutty cop, nor a sexy nurse, and she wasn't a bunny rabbit, either. She was just a woman who was six months pregnant, feeling as though she were confined to the couch.

She found herself missing the years of Halloween's past, when her fishnets would be down at her ankles, her stilettos half off, an inevitable transition when the alcohol and tame socializing became a bore; her and David Cantone would be upstairs, in hopefully what was a guest bedroom, having their own fun, doing the downright raunchy version of the Monster Mash.

Then, she found herself missing Jimmy, well, more accurately, being able to curl up against him, feeling his chest rise and fall with the ease of breaths passing through lungs and feel the quiet rumble of his snores, without her belly practically hell bent on keeping them apart.

It struck her sometimes, like it did now, just how _different_ these two relationships were.

With David, though she did love him on some level and enough to say that he was probably her first love, it was the physical attraction between them that was the anchor of their relationship. If they fought, they'd just have make up sex and everything would be smoothed over; and now that she thought about it, that relationship was a friends with benefits type. She loved him, sure, but ultimately, like Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, it was as a friend that she loved to fuck around with. That she _could_ fuck around with, without getting in trouble, but for only so long. Soon, he felt more for her than she did for him, and as it often goes with that cinematically romanticized relationship, they broke up.

Jimmy though, she loved wholeheartedly, and when she told him she wanted the whole Happy Meal, she meant it, though may not have known it to be a proposal of commitment, not at first. Not until he told her he loved her and she clammed up; the feelings she was experiencing, stinging her heart like a raw patch of skin exposed to air, clamping down on it until it could barely beat in a natural euthymic rhythm. Her heart literally skipped beats for this man, a _Gibbler,_ to make everything more surprising in irony, and, of course, Stephanie had no idea what to do. So, she started to make excuses, until, that one fateful Christmas morning, under the winter's dawn, the sheerness of the sunlight and the holiday pep making those words sound even more beautiful, even more monumental: _"I love you."_

Just then, as if summoned by her thoughts, she heard him call out to her from upstairs. "Steph-o-lantern, are you and Baby ready to take the boys trick-or-treating?

"In a minute babe," she called back, trying, but failing, to get up herself. As she settled back into the cushions, defeated, a hard kick pierced her belly button. She groaned, rubbing the spot where the kick was felt in soothing circles.

"You didn't drink juice with dinner did you? Or any ice cream for dessert? I didn't see you have any when the rest of us did."

Stephanie looked up to see Jimmy standing in front of her now, holding their costumes in his hands. His eyebrows were furrowed with worry. She'd began to forget what he looked like _without_ lines creasing his forehead. She shook her head, feeling yet another kick, this one calculated at her ribs.

"No. I promise I didn't. I swear –"

She cringed as another kick pierced her bladder. "- No junk today. Not one bit. By the way they're kicking though, you'd think I'd downed a Big Gulp in under a minute."

"Awe sweetheart," he cooed, pushing her hair away from her forehead as he knelt down to be at her height. "We don't need to go if you're not up to it. Besides, I'm sure your sister or mine won't mind if we missed the party anyway."

Stephanie sighed. "No. I want to go. We need to get out, because in T-minus three months, there won't be any of that for at least the next year. Besides, I told Gia I'd be there. Now, let's change."

"If you say so," Jimmy said, taking her hand to help her up and passing her costume to her. "You're going to look adorable."

"No I won't."

"Yes you will," he argued, kissing her cheek.

"Won't," she rebutted, manipulating her body in such a way so that she could get the costume on without somehow hurting herself.

"Oh!" Jimmy exclaimed, a hand to his heart that made her anticipate _proud dad_ moments to come. "You are totally rocking that pumpkin."

She smirked. "You look not too shabby in that candlestick."

"Yeah right," he rolled his eyes with a hint of modesty. "It makes me look like I'm scrawny and about three inches taller than I actually am."

"Oh my Lanta!"

Stephanie turned to see DJ behind her, smiling from ear to ear in her Little Red Riding Hood costume. The red, large-buttoned wool coat was done up all the way to the top, the hood up, and in her hand she had a wicker basket filled with actual, homemade cookies inside. Stephanie still couldn't believe she'd went through the trouble, but DJ was convinced the kids would eat them anyways, and it added to her costume. Neither were exactly lies. Matt stood next to her, a smaller, less enthused smile on his face, probably because he was sweating like a pig in that wolf suit, though the head was in his hand, so that had to provide some relief from the humidity.

"Awe, you guys look adorable Deej," Stephanie said. "And I gotta say, the cookies are a nice touch. Can I have one?"

DJ slapped her hand away, shaking her head. "Not until I make my big debut at the party."

She laughed. "You sound like Michelle."

"Oh, dear lord, I do," DJ groaned, laughing. "Fine. One."

Just as Stephanie reached her hand into the basket again, the baby gave her another forceful kick. "You know what? I don't think I will, actually."

Putting her hand to her belly and moving it around in attempt to sooth the baby, Stephanie sighed. "I think Baby's restless."

Looking down at her stomach, she frowned. "No way are you coming out three months early, you got me? I know nobody puts Baby in a corner, but I'm backing you into one, because I want you to be fully grown and healthy when you come into the world, okay?"

Jimmy put his hand on hers. "I agree with, Mommy, Baby. You stay put."

DJ shook her head, a forlorn expression gracing her facial features. "I remember those days. The heartbeat, the kicks, the sleepless nights during the last trimester…"

"Wait," Stephanie stared at her sister. "You mean to tell me that this being awake half the night because Baby won't settle down and is busy doing somersaults in my womb, is a continuous thing?"

"Unfortunately Steph, yeah. For you, especially. Hyperactivity is genetic, you know," she winked, and Stephanie groaned.

"But I just wanna sleep before I give birth, dammit. Is that too much to ask?"

"Yes," DJ answered, gesturing to their costumes. "Pumpkin and a candlestick? Genius."

Stephanie rolled her eyes as she laughed. "Jimmy's idea. It was either this, a pregnant cheerleader and her quarterback boyfriend, which I thought some _overly sensitive_ people might find offensive, or he could be Jonah and I could be the whale, but not ironically. I vetoed the last one, for obvious reasons."

DJ laughed too. Even Matt chuckled, and Jimmy just looked proud of himself.

"Okay everyone! Are we ready? I know I am! Candyland awaits!" Max exclaimed excitedly, and it was like he appeared out of thin air, bouncing on his toes.

All the adults laughed.

"Alright, let's go, buddy," DJ said, taking her son's hand in her own as Matt took her other one.

Jimmy mimicked Matt and took her hand too, swinging their arms.

"I can't wait until we have our kid in between us."

Jimmy squeezed her hand. "Am I really that repulsive?"

She laughed. "No. Not at all. Quite the opposite actually."

Kissing his cheek, she reciprocated his hand squeeze. "I just mean we could do _this_ with them. She swung their arms more vigorously for emphasis. "As a little girl, I used to love being swung in the air by my arms."

"What do you mean? To be honest, Steph, that sounds like torture," he told her with a straight face, so she rushed to explain.

"It's not, babe. Trust me. When I was little, sometimes I would be too lazy or too tired to walk the rest of the way home. So, my Dad and either Uncle Jesse or Joey would take both of my hands, say _'one, two, three, swing!'_ and lift me off the ground. They'd do that for about three blocks or so, and then one of the guys' arms would be sore. Wimps," she murmured. "I was only like fifty, sixty, pounds at the time."

"Oh," Jimmy said. "Totally not what I had pictured at first. That sounds harmless. And if you loved it, I bet they will too."

Stephanie leaned in to give him a kiss, but before it could go on for too long, DJ cleared her throat. "Be mindful of your surroundings."

"Says the biggest kiss-slut, ever," Stephanie scoffed humorously. "I seem to remember you macking on Mr. Matt over here right in front of your children and father. And uncles, and aunts, and the dog and – "

"Okay, okay," DJ cut her off as Matt chuckled next to her. "I get it. I have no right to be telling you where you can and can't kiss your boyfriend. Sorry."

"Thank you," she said, kissing Jimmy once more, to both satisfy herself and to annoy her sister.

When they were trick-or-treating, Max insisted on pulling his Aunt Stephanie by the arm to every house he went to, and rather harshly, because he was excited to show off his _actual_ cousin. He liked Ramona enough, or so he said, but she wasn't actually _related_ to him. She thought it was adorable, and went along with it, even though her feet were sore and her back ached.

The neighbors' reactions were more of the same, and given that Stephanie now lived in the house where she grew up, many of them couldn't resist saying a variation of _'I remember when you were just a little girl! One of the sweet little Tanners. Now you're all grown and starting a family of your own! Oh, how time flies!'_

Other questions were about the baby itself: _'when are you due?' – January 26_ _th_ _. Do you know the sex? – No. Do you want to know? – We want it to be a surprise. And the father? – My boyfriend, Jimmy. You know Kimmy Gibbler? Her younger brother?'_

The last question was often posed by the older women, and with her answer came an eyebrow raise that spoke judgement put upon by their generation, which was conventional, grounded in religiosity, a time where men and women got married before having sex, and were married before having children. It was just how things were then, so when she received those reactions, she didn't dwell on them, instead, just brushed them aside with a smile, gesturing over to DJ who stood next to Jimmy. _'And you know Donna Jo of course!'_

By the time they got home, organized the kids, which meant promptly inspecting their candy for any surprise razor blades or packages that were open just a tiny bit, enough to raise suspicion, it was just after 9:30, but Stephanie felt as though it were sometime into the next morning. Hiding a yawn behind her hand, she leaned into Jimmy's side, comforted when he put his arm around her midsection, and pressed his hand against her stomach.

"Steph, you seem zonked. Are you sure you have enough energy to go to this party? We could just stay home with Max and Tommy, so that DJ wouldn't have to pay a babysitter. We'll steal candy from Max's stash when he's asleep."

"Hey! I heard that, Gibbler!" Max said, pointing an accusatory finger at Jimmy and holding his paper grocery bag filled to the brim with all types of sweets, to his chest. "And don't you even think about taking any of my mini M&Ms or you're a dead man."

Stephanie smiled but shook her head. "No, I can rally. Let me just get some water, and then we'll head out with the others."

"No worries, Maximillian. I hate M&Ms anyway. I'm more of a Smarties guy myself. Or Sweet Tarts. Those are good."

Max's eyes narrowed as he stared at him, while Jimmy just shrugged.

"You're not making a very good case for yourself, _Gobbler_. If you're going to be my cousin's Daddy, you better redeem yourself. If you like Skittles, I'll forgive you for saying you don't like M&M's. And I'll be okay with you being my cousin's Daddy."

"Actually, I happen to love Skittles. And to set the record straight on two things," Jimmy smirked, his tone teasing. "I believe I told you that I _hate_ M&Ms, not just _don't like_ them, and sorry to ruin what you probably believe to be true about a stork and doorsteps, but there's no way that you can stop me from being their Daddy, kiddo."

Max frowned, and Stephanie laughed, lightly smacking her boyfriend on the arm. "You stop that! Listen Max, Jimmy's just having fun with you, you know that, right bud?"

Max nodded, and Stephanie went over to give him a kiss on the cheek, which he accepted with a cheeky grin. This one, unlike her other nephew, Jackson, loved affection and poured himself into it as much as he could; whenever there was an opportunity for a hug, or a kiss, or just sitting beside someone, he was all over it. It was adorable. She hoped her child would be just like that.

"As long as you're happy Aunt Stephanie, and love Jimmy enough to want to marry him for real, then I'm happy too."

Stephanie bit her lip to keep from losing her composure and turning into a puddle of tears. _Damn pregnancy hormones._ "Max…that's so incredibly sweet of you to say. I love you, buddy."

"I love you too," Max told her, snuggling into her hug, mashing himself gently against the swell of her burgeoning belly.

"But what do you mean, ' _get married for real'?"_

Max pulled back to look at her with an _'are you stupid?_ ' inflection nonverbally etched into the corners of his mouth as he tried not to laugh and the slope of his eyebrows, as if he didn't quite believe that she was asking this question.

"I mean, like have a ceremony and stuff, with the poufy dress and the up-do and the tuxedo and the buffet, and the...the vows, you can't forget the vows! When are you going to do that? I mean, you might as well just do it, because Jimmy sleeps here every night, in the same bed as you, and you spend like every waking moment of the day together, you love each other, and you're the parents of my cousin. So all you need to do is make it official, and have the ceremony. It'll be the real deal, then."

"Wait, Max, how do you know Jimmy sleeps here? His RV's just outside. Why would he be sleeping here, if he has his own place to sleep?" Stephanie asked her nephew, confused, but animatedly so, playing to the naivety of a child, hoping that if she asked this with enough disbelief, he'd drop it entirely.

Although, as he kept staring at her, she couldn't help but be suddenly wistful for the day he was talking _all_ about.

That same expression from before came over his face, and he sighed, putting a hand on his hip, an action that was split between cute, and something slightly emasculating. "Aunt Stephanie, I'm not dumb. I'm _ten_ years old. Double digits. I know things."

"Oh yeah?" DJ said in amusement. "What kinds of things?"

This was to humor the boy, she knew, but she wasn't quick to underestimate the mind of Maxwell Fuller. That child could eavesdrop like no other, and wasn't shy about letting people know; even when he was smaller, he was fearless that way, offering excerpts that were oddly verbatim from a conversation that was happening in the other room – _'ugh, that bitch of a woman is getting on my last nerve, I tell you!';_ ruining birthday surprises – _"Kimmy! Mom said she's planning you a surprise birthday party…whoops…'_ and the most famous one to date – _'Kimmy and Fernando were kissing in the living room. A lot. But they don't want Ramona to know, so sh!'_ Of course, Ramona was at the refrigerator, looking for the orange juice, but was concealed from view by the door, and, well, that was that. They all laugh about it now.

"Yeah. I'd like to know too, Max. Lay it on me."

Max looked from her to Jimmy, and then back again. She found herself anticipating the answer to her sister's question, more than she would have otherwise liked to admit.

"Well, when I had a bad dream a few nights ago I snuck down to your bedroom because I didn't want to wake Mom and Tommy, who was sick. And you always help the bad dreams go away."

Stephanie's heart warmed at that. He sounded so _little_ to her in that moment, so defenseless, and so fragile that when she hugged him close to her, she half expected the oddly aromatic scent of newborn baby to emanate from the soft skin of his head, now covered by a mop of kempt boyish hair.

"I'm happy to help, sweet boy," she said, her words murmured by her kissing his forehead.

"But…how does – wait, when you came to see me, was I … I was wearing PJ's right, bud?"

"Stephanie!" DJ exclaimed, but turned it down a notch when she realized her son might not understand the implications of the question. "Was she, Max?"

"Of course she was. That's what we wear to bed. So obviously Aunt Stephanie was wearing them. They were cute, too. Pink and black checkered ones."

"Oh thank you god," Stephanie exhaled in relief, and from next to her, she heard Jimmy chuckle quietly, though she doubt anybody else had.

She could remember being stupidly immersed in her desires and intense physical attraction towards him, longing for the very _second_ she would feel him as close as he could ever be to her; for the elastic to snap, and that _crazy_ , aggressive, pull of their bodies attempting to come together would give, and it would be more of a submissive duress; their bodies coming to an understanding that it was useless to try and stop it – as if either of them actually _wanted_ to.

"And when I climbed up onto the other side of your bed, I hit something with my knees."

Jimmy lightly elbowed her, and pretty quickly, she could figure out what he was trying to say. That next morning, he complained of a soreness around his calves, but she knew they hadn't went to _that_ point the night before, given that she was six months pregnant. So, the resulting bruise remained a mystery. Until now.

"Then I saw a head against a pillow, and heard snoring. I left the room after that. Then, the next morning, when I saw Jimmy in the kitchen and he had major bedhead, I put two and two together."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense, then," Stephanie nodded her head, and watched as DJ did too, but gave her the ultimate side eye as she did.

"Yes, it does. And so, because you guys sleep together in the same bed, and have breakfast together, and lunch and dinner, and you're having a baby together, then you should be married."

The blatant way he said this was typical of a child, so assured and certain with what they were saying, so much so that it could never be wrong, not in any sense. It made her smile, but then there they came: Max's next words. They took the entirety of her entrails and twisted them, pulled them forcefully from her body, so all that was left was this hollowness so caverned that not even an echo of a _yell_ could be heard.

"My Mom and Dad were married. For 15 _years._ They did all that stuff too. Until Dad wasn't in their bed anymore, or sitting in his spot at the kitchen table, or being Jackson's and my Dad anymore."

Max slumped down onto the couch, and Cosmo curled up beside him, whimpering a little. Then, Max whispered so quietly, it was just as likely it hadn't come from him at all but the wind, whining with sepulchral undertones, a faint hissing as it came inside through the front door, open just a crack.

"Because he died in a stupid fire _._ "

Stephanie remembered that. _Of course_ she remembered that. Is what she _should_ be thinking. That is, if she were a decent sister, or even just a half-decent human being. In truth though, she _couldn't_ be thinking like that, not in good conscience.

 _When her phone rang at around three in the morning, Stephanie was angry. She'd been in what she'd remembered as the deepest sleep she's ever had since forever, with her tank top ridden up to past her midriff, and her pyjama bottoms completely off; who knew where they'd gone, in the sheets at the bottom of the bed, on the floor, or were they thrown with annoyance against the door, since then laying in a heap in front of it? There was no telling. Not when she was_ _ **that**_ _tired. Or_ _ **that**_ _drunk._ _ **Still.**_ _Four or so odd hours later._

 _When she finally had her phone in her grip – she'd been fumbling around for it on the nightstand for longer than should have been necessary – the screen was a bleary mess. She couldn't see who was calling. And for a startling minute, she couldn't_ _ **hear**_ _who it was, either. It was the combination of her mind's languidness and the sobs that were insanely composed - soft, but heartbreaking just the same, as though the person didn't quite comprehend what was going on, much like Stephanie herself in that moment, but somehow_ _ **knew**_ _that they should be crying._

 _"_ _Steph?"_

 _"_ _Deej? Are you alright?"_

 _Stephanie dug the back of her hand into her eyes, breathing in and out, hoping against hope that nothing was seriously wrong._

 _"_ _I – um – tonight – there was a big – a big structure fire in some apartment complex in the next town over and – and – Tom he – he was – a beam from the ceiling fell and it was on fire, obviously and it was heavy and – and he – he's not – he didn't – "_

 _She gasped, covering her mouth, and began choking on the instantaneousness of her grief. She prayed that DJ wouldn't say the words. It wasn't because she couldn't stand to hear it, although she really couldn't. It was because she didn't want the shock to wear off, she yearned for it to keep DJ feeling like she was in motion, to keep her feeling like gravity did exist, that she was functioning as she would usually, without the force of devastating loss oppressing her every attempt at living a normal life again, after tonight._

 _"_ _He died. My husband is dead, Stephanie."_

 _There it is. She still sounded vacant, as though she were a discombobulated child waking from a nap, unsure if the scenes they were seeing in their sleep were real, and they've lived them, or are living them, or if they were merely just dreams, disappearing before their very consciousness, and never truly remembered. Oh, how she wished, with every aching muscle in her body, that this was a dream._

 _"_ _Oh, honey," Stephanie cooed, holding the phone so tight her knuckles were turning white, or more accurately, she_ _ **felt**_ _her circulation go, because her eyes were shut so tight it was a miracle she could see even the black of her eyelids. "I am so, so, sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am."_

 _There was silence, then there was a big sigh and a phlegmy cough. "I have two small boys to raise and I'm seven and a half months pregnant with our third."_

 _There was a pause, and she just let it continue, not knowing what the right thing to say was, because nothing she could think to say, no matter how eloquent (which, in her residually drunken state, was asking a lot) it could never absolve the pain._

 _"_ _Steph, how am I going to tell the boys? He was my everything._ _ **Their**_ _everything. I couldn't possibly –"_

 _Stephanie took one hand away from the phone, navigating her body by touch, and felt Mr. Bear along her ribcage, somehow instantly comforted._

 _"_ _\- Just…Deej, you remember how Dad told us that Mom had died, right?"_

 _"_ _Of course. He called a family meeting, sat us on the couch, and gave us what I thought was just going to be an unmemorable lecture on drunk driving…before telling us that with drunk drivers often comes victimized death, and that our mother was one of those victims. That she died on scene, instantly and painlessly."_

 _"_ _And?" she prodded, after giving her sister the pause she needed to collect herself._

 _"_ _And that she loved us very much, and she would want us to be sad, but not too sad, because we have to remember that up where she is now, is a better place than where we are, here."_

 _Stephanie couldn't help but smile silently to herself, the left side of her mouth upturning only slightly. "That's right. You can take a little comfort in that Tom is there with Mom now. That they're safe. Experiencing no pain. And watching over us always."_

 _She felt as if the tables have turned from the time when they were kids, going back to the moment she took her first breath on this earth, and from every moment since. For the first time, it was Stephanie who was taking on the motherly role in their relationship, but it didn't feel how she expected it to; she thought she'd feel this onslaught of unsurmountable responsibility, and be grappling with the intensity of her sister's every emotion, so viscerally attuned as if it were her own. This was true. She was, on both accounts. The feeling that she hadn't been prepared for though, came in a cresting wave of warmth._

 _"_ _Thanks, Steph. I love you so much."_

 _"_ _I love you too, Deej." Stephanie clucked her tongue in thought, though hoped DJ couldn't hear it through the speaker, because it spoke every bit of sympathy and worry she had for her older sister._

 _"_ _You know what? I'm sure the boys miss their Aunt Stephanie. I haven't seen the little nuggets since Christmas, after all. And I want to be there for you. No, scratch that. I_ _ **need**_ _to be there. I'm catching the next flight out of London. No ifs ands or buts. Because nobody wants to see those."_

 _When DJ laughed, Stephanie did too, but both were elegiac and shallow sounding. In those laughs, they were both remembering their mother, who's famous line that was, and now Tom, who was hopefully at peace._

 _"_ _Okay," DJ whispered in effortless compliance, like a child who woke up from a nightmare and was promptly told to go back to sleep after being talked down. "Thank you."_

Presently, Stephanie watched as DJ hugged her middle child close, and kissed his head, similar to what she'd done not even five minutes before. It was crazy how the atmosphere had changed; how random yet completely tethered moments in life threw you into memories so fast, you were left tumbling through them, lost and confused, because weren't you just _laughing_ at something funny? Why are you _crying_ now? Even Baby was quiet. Not even a single kick.

"Oh, _buddy_. I miss your Dad too. Every single day. But you know what?"

"What?

"It's really good to think about him. I do. I think about him _at least_ once a day. Sometimes more, depending on what I'm doing."

"Really?" Max asked, snuggling further into his mom's chest and staring up at her with questions forming in his brain, showing themselves through his expressivist's eyes. If you wanted to read him, what he was thinking, how he was feeling, his eyes were the first place to look. Always. Stephanie loved that about her nephew. Mostly because it reminded her so much of herself.

"Yep. Just yesterday, I was outside playing fetch with Cosmo in the yard, and when he brought the ball back to me, he dropped it at my feet and tilted his head to the left as if he was saying something like: _'well, what are you waiting for? Are you going to throw it again or what?'"_

"Why did that remind you of Dad? Cosmo always does that. Don't all dogs?"

"Well maybe," DJ said. "But it made me think of him because when Dad met me, he had a two year old Lab named Fletcher. And Fletcher was full of energy, always bouncing off the walls, even as he got to be a little older, he never slowed down. It's a breed thing.

"And there was this one time when Fletcher crashed our date – if we were at his place Fletcher was always there, which I loved, he was a sweetie, but this time, he was craving exercise, not content with sitting around inside.

"And so, we took him to the park. Played fetch. Every, single, time. I'm not kidding. Fletcher would do that exact thing that Cosmo was doing when he brought the ball back, and your Dad was so proud, going on and on about how expressive he was and how good at bringing back the ball he was. I mean, he was a _retriever_ so that wasn't exactly a surprise, but I wasn't going to say anything."

"Oh, I see," Max smiled. "I like that story. And I like that Cosmo makes you remember Dad. Now when I play fetch with Cosmo, I'll think of this story, and remember him too."

"Good," DJ told him, kissing his cheek and bouncing him a little on her knee, like she does to Tommy, a maternal habit of sorts. "Did I ever tell you the story about when Jackson was just a toddler and Fletcher loved to nip at his tiny toddler toes?"

"No," Max grinned, anticipating it now.

"Well, your brother was probably two or three, and Fletcher was nine, or around there, but still acted like a puppy. So, one day, your Dad had taken the dog for a walk, and I was at home with Jackson, watching Blue's Clues. Or was it Barney? Sesame Street, maybe? Anyway, doesn't matter. One of them. And we were – "

"Wait, hold on. Are you saying Jackson watched Sesame Street? _And_ Barney? _And_ Blue's Clues? They were all my favorites too! We're the same!" Max puffed out his chest slightly. "That's so cool! I can't _wait_ to tell him."

DJ laughed and so did Stephanie. In that second, even though she hasn't even given birth to her _first_ child yet, and logically knew that getting pregnant _again_ was next to impossible, she wanted to give the baby a sibling, biological or otherwise. She hoped Jimmy would feel the same. Or already does. She hoped they'd be as close as Jackson and Max were, with little Tommy soon joining them in their bond.

"I'm sure he'd like to hear it, bud." DJ responded, continuing her story.

"And so, when Dad got home Fletcher came ripping through the house, and little Jackson was sitting on his plush chair in front of the TV, didn't even see him. That is, until Fletcher bit four toes in one go. Jackson cried and cried, so much that I started to worry we would never be able to calm him down. Fletcher never bit our toes, just Jackson's, which we found odd. It was kind of cute the first time, but not so much the second, or third, or fourth.

"We were _this_ close to shipping him off to Aunt Stephanie in London. Or, wherever she happened to be." DJ smiled at her, a teasing nuance in her expression. "You would've loved that right, Steph?"

"I would've hurt you," she said, shaking her head with a smile of her own, which said she didn't really mean that. "My apartment at the time allowed no pets, and my roommate was allergic. So that would have been a pretty big problem."

"Luckily, as soon as Fletcher understood that it hurt when he did that, and Jackson wasn't playing, he stopped."

"Well that's good," Max said, getting off the couch and stretching his arms. "Does anybody else want something from my stash? This is a limited time offer. I've got Reece, Red Vines, Smarties, Sweet Tarts, Skittles, and etcetera."

"No thank you Max," DJ said, and Stephanie politely declined with the rest of them as well, even though she could really go for some Red Vines right about now. She didn't want Baby tossing and turning all night because she gave them sugar right before bed.

When DJ stood up as well, she passed by her son and kissed him once more. "You okay now?"

With a mouthful of Skittles, Max nodded, swallowing before speaking. "I'm better. Thanks, Mom. I love you."

"Awe, I love you too, my baby."

"Isn't Tommy your baby?"

"You all are," DJ told him, smiling and bringing him into a hug against her chest. "Remember, I'll love you forever, I'll love you for always, as long as I'm living – "

"My baby you'll be," Max finished for her, as a sheepish, embarrassed blush that was so unlike him, skittered across his cheeks. "I know."

DJ crossed her arms, raising her eyebrow. "Are you embarrassed of me, Maxwell Fuller?"

"Jackson is," Max replied, also crossing his arms.

"So you have to be?" DJ asked, sighing. "Jackson's a teenager. He's supposed to be. It's in the job description. But you? I didn't expect that."

Max shrugged. "I'm ten years old. Isn't that when kids start getting embarrassed by their parents?"

"No," Stephanie interjected, laughing and allowing DJ to save face by not having to answer.

"You don't have to be embarrassed until at least thirty."

She glanced at her sister, who was currently trying to take a selfie, but was struggling to pose and hold the phone at the same time.

"Okay, twenty-five," she refuted her earlier claim with a shake of her head. "Seriously Deej? You're not really pleading your case here."

"Hm? What? Oh, sorry. I was just snapping Steve back."

As she said the word _'snapping'_ , DJ snapped her fingers. _Actually snapped_ her fingers.

"Did you really just do that? Please don't. Never again," Stephanie groaned, then laughed, when she asked her why it was called snapchat in the first place _, 'if there's no snapping involved?'_

It was hard to tell if DJ was joking or not, and just then Ramona came into the room, having evidently heard the last part of their conversation. "Because it's an app that allows for you to _'snap'_ pictures of yourself, or whatever, and put a caption on them to ' _chat'_ with someone. So, Snapchat. No snapping whatsoever. You're not a one-man doo-wop group. Get with the times, DJ."

Stephanie couldn't help but roll her eyes as Kimmy backpacked on to her daughter. "Yeah, Deej. Get with the times."

"And _you're_ 'with the times, Kimmy?"

Kimmy turned her nose up in that quintessential _Kimmy_ way of hers and nodded once. "Totally, Steph. I know all of the words to _Despacito._ Even the Spanish verses."

Stephanie scoffed, her reproach transparent in her expression and voice. "Sure you do. _I_ don't even know them. I barely know the chorus. And I was a _deejay_ for a living. You know how _often_ that song was requested? How many times I had to remix it into something? I've heard it so much, I think I actually _hate_ it, now."

"Okay," Kimmy resigned, shaking her head. "I _don't_ know the Spanish parts. I just hum it. Even the chorus. With a few _Doritos_ here and there. Ramona though, she can sing the whole song. I've heard her – into her hairbrush in her bedroom – like we all used to do. "

Kimmy smiled ruminatively.

Ramona, from beside her mother, smirked, embarrassed at having been caught, but also boasted her talent. "It's my party trick."

Stephanie rose her eyebrow at her and Ramona just giggled and gave a salacious little wink, just for her benefit, she was sure.

"Despacito? That sounds like the name of a rundown burrito joint." DJ remarked. "It's a song?"

Stephanie fought the urge to smack her upside the head for that comment. How could she not have heard it before? Or at least heard _of_ it? Answer: she's DJ. Still stuck in the roundabout that is the '90s, never having made it onto the main road with the rest of them.

"Um, _obviously,_ Mom. It was a top summer jam for like a _year,"_ Max said, pulling off a piece of licorice from the stick with his teeth. "It's _'my song.'_ I can't believe you don't know it. How are you my mother?"

DJ laughed, putting her palm against her son's back and shoving him lightly, all in good fun.

"A little something called luck," she told him, kissing the back of his head. "You, Jackson and Tommy are the best kids ever."

"Well _thank you_ ," Max responded, emboldened, his hand against his chest with sickening melodrama, teetering very near to the edge that separated unwitting and adorable, from egotistical and cringe worthy. "It's _about time_ someone said something."

About twenty minutes later, after the babysitter had arrived and Jackson and Ramona left for their own party at Popko's, they were finally on their way. After arriving, Stephanie was instantly engulfed in a group of people, all wanting to touch her belly and coo over it. She allowed them, embracing Gia in a friendly hug after she'd had her turn, babbling to Stephanie about her pregnancies with all four kids; how she remembered that by month eight it was the most uncomfortable thing she's ever felt, next to actually giving birth, of course.

"You wouldn't believe it Steph. It's crazy."

"Oh, great," Stephanie sighed. "It's not like I'm in heaven right now or anything, either."

Gia laughed, and Jimmy, from beside her, insisted that if she weren't feeling well that they could go home.

She glanced at Gia and then back at her boyfriend. "I think…would you mind, Gia? I'm just really…Baby's really annoyed with me right now, apparently. They're kicking up a storm."

"No, not at all. You go, honey. I'll be fine by myself. I'm a big girl." Gia took a swig of her wine to prove the point. "And you really don't know Baby's gender?"

" _No,_ Gia," Stephanie shook her head with a smile.

"But say, if you _did_ ," she pushed, "you'd tell me? Your best friend?"

"If Stephanie knew the sex of her baby, she'd tell me first _. I'm_ her sister. Her _bestest_ friend. Isn't that right, Steph?"

Stephanie rolled her eyes. Not this again. "Deej – "

" _Bestest?_ What are you, five years old?" Gia sneered, imitating Stephanie's eye roll in different context.

DJ mumbled under her breath intelligibly. Then she spoke up. "Forget it. I'm not here to have this fight with you. I'm here to check on my little sister. How are you doing, Steph?"

DJ put her hand on her arm and suddenly she felt compelled to tell the truth. "I'm exhausted. I'm feeling crappy because Baby will not stop _moving_ , and I'm cold. It's so _damn cold_ in here."

"Awe," DJ said, though it was in legitimate empathy, even though Stephanie knew she sounded like a whiney complainer. "Okay. I'm sure Matt wouldn't mind leaving early. I'll go tell him we're going to take you home."

"No, Deej. Seriously. It's fine. Jimmy and I can – "

"I'll take you home, BFF," Gia interjected, linking their arms, and with her movement, her seashell bra fell slightly, and her red wig brushed Stephanie's shoulder.

"No, really, Gia it's – "

" _BFF?_ What are you, _thirteen?"_ DJ asked, with a spark of passive insult, and Stephanie almost lost it.

"I've got it from here. Besides, I don't really think you should be going anywhere with next to nothing on your body. What if your children could see you now?"

Gia huffed, crossing her arms almost self-consciously over her chest. "They're not here. And for your information, my ex-husband had a lot to say about it when he came to pick them up. It's _sexy._ Unlike _your_ costume. Little Red _Virgin-Girl."_

DJ gasped, her mouth agape in shock. "Well at least I'm not you. Ariel the Little _Whore."_

"Okay, okay, girls! That's enough out of you," Stephanie interrupted, keeping them at a distance from one another with her distended belly. "Wow. I actually feel like a _mother_."

Both women glared at each other, but then looked at her with adoring expressions. "That's because you _are_ , Steph." DJ told her, as Gia nodded. "Have I even said congratulations yet?"

Stephanie grinned. "Only about a million times. Now Deej, this mommy needs some sleep. So Jimmy and I – _just us two –_ are going home. And getting a cab. And _you_ and your _lover boy_ are staying out as long as you like. Jimmy will make sure the kids get home safe from Bobby's. I promise."

"Fine," DJ said, but with the smirk that came over her face as she glanced covertly at Matt, said that the arrangement was _much better_ than _fine._

Jimmy kissed her temple and helped Stephanie put on her jacket. She hadn't even registered that he'd been gone. "Thanks, babe."

"You're welcome. I called the cab. They'll be here in five."

"Sounds perfect," she sighed, leaning into him and closing her eyes. "And I apologize in advance if I fall asleep on the way home."

He laughed, kissing the top of her head. "No need to apologize, sweetheart."


	3. Chapter 3

**_Author's Note: I know, I know, it took me forever to update but this was in my Drive so I decided to just finish it and publish it! :) So to those who wanted an update: you're welcome and I hope you like it. And to those who didn't ask for one: same thing. :) (P.S I really want the proposal to happen on the show :P)_**

* * *

 ** _December 24_** ** _th_** ** _, 2019 – 11:50pm_**

It was nearly Christmas morning, and although the house was quiet, with the only noises being Matt's snoring from upstairs, mixed in with Jackson's heavy breathing, both indicating deep sleep, there was a certain activity of excitement; it was almost time.

"Ten minutes and counting," Stephanie murmured, snuggling into his chest. She was tired, but they'd made it this far, having just finished wrapping presents and helping DJ and Matt prep the tree just before the two of them went off to bed.

"That should be enough," she heard Jimmy whisper to himself and she had time to only be confused so long before he abruptly grabbed her left hand, caressing it and then intertwining their fingers. Much of what Jimmy did was abrupt. In fact, most of what any Gibbler did was that way, although she didn't mind, she had actually gotten used to it.

"What are you – "

"Stephanie Judith Tanner. I know you didn't do commitment and neither did I. Not until we started this thing. I can say that I love you, now. I can say it over and over, again and again. In fact, I like to say it. I would say it in a boat, I would say it in the rain, I would say it in a train, I would say it anywhere, you see!"

Stephanie grinned at him, laughing as he continued. She'd only resist mumbling _'dork'_ under her breath just this once.

" _I love you,_ Stephanie. And I believe that we're meant to be together. When you kissed me that day in your backyard, I thought to myself that this must be what kissing your soulmate is like. I thought: damn, if I get to kiss this woman for the rest of my life, I could never be any luckier.

"When I told you that my oldest memory of you was when we kissed, not five minutes before, I lied. Well, not lied, really. I just…didn't tell you the real memory, because I do have one, you know.

"We were only five. I was walking back from the corner store and I saw you, a little ways down your block. You were alone. And you had on these heels, and you were wobbling up a storm in them but the look on your face said that you were determined to keep wearing them, keep walking in them, no matter how many times you fell, which I'd gathered had been a lot. As I watched you, you took too big of a step and the tiny pointed heel – whatever it's called – "

"A stiletto," she whispered, biting her lip. She knew where this was going. She could remember that day, too.

"Right. It broke and you fell pretty hard on the cement. Ouch," he chuckled. "So I ran up to you and you were trying to hold in the tears, but try as you might, a few fell down your cheeks as your nose ran. You told me that you were fine, that I should just go back home, and that it didn't matter why you were wearing those heels, anyway.

"I didn't push you. Didn't think you'd wanted to be pushed. But then you stopped me. You pulled me back by the arm and down to your height on the ground. You looked so sad, so heartbroken, that I felt compelled to hug you, but I didn't. Didn't want to weird you out.

"I'm a Tanner," she laughed. "We hug for a living. I totally would have let you."

"Duly noted," he said. "You told me that those were your mom's shoes. _'She died.'_ You didn't give me anything more. I didn't ask. I just picked you up and let you lean on me, because your ankle was turning purple and even _I_ had enough sense at the time to see that you couldn't walk on it.

"Halfway home, you said to me that I was the first person you told. I said that wasn't true, that my Mom and my older brother and sister knew, too. In fact, everybody in our grade knew. You told me that, yes, they all knew, but that you hadn't _told_ them."

Stephanie felt him wipe the tears that were gathering below her eyes and opened her mouth to speak. "You said that you felt special."

"And you told me: _'I guess you should.'_ And that was it. We ended up in your backyard, just holding each other in silence. I was keeping you up off your ankle and you were just using me as support, and we were only little kids, who barely knew what love was, but still, it felt intimate. Time seemed to stop at that moment. It seemed to not exist, anymore. And when we kissed twenty nine or so years later, it felt that way again.

"Every time we kiss, every time we touch, it feels that way, Steph."

Her laugh was teary and gentle. "It feels that way for me too, babe."

Taking a deep breath, Jimmy released his grip on her hands and reached into his sweater pocket while getting down on one knee on the carpet below them. Opening the box and staring into her eyes, he asked her the one question she'd dreamed of hearing since she was ten years old and had that lame crush on Tommy Paige; it wasn't lame then, oh no, that boy was _fine,_ but now, when she sees herself looking so hopeful and so happy, as happy as Tracy Turnblad is around Link Larkin, in the reflection of Jimmy Gibbler's eyes, it's _very much_ lame.

"Will you marry me?"

Inadvertently, Stephanie let out this loud scream, and all Jimmy did was laugh as he slid the gorgeous ring that must have cost him many, many hours of taking photographs, onto her finger.

"I take that as a yes?"

She jumped into his readied embrace, still nearly knocking him over. Wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, she allowed herself to be picked up off of the ground and whirled around; feeling for one moment, like she was a child again, that same child that sprained her ankle in her mother's heels, playing one of the intense games of Ring around the Rosy that she used to love so much.

"Yes! Of course, _yes!"_

Laughing as they could hear the banging of feet on the stairs, Jimmy leaned over and whispered into her ear. "Merry Christmas."

He let her slide to the floor then, as she grinned, addressing her entire, disgruntled family, all except for Max, who was bright eyed and bushy tailed. "Is Santa here!? Is that why you screamed!?"

"More like she's being kidnapped by Gibbler over there," Jackson grunted with a frown, clearly not impressed at being woken up.

Stephanie laughed. "Sorry you guys. No Max, Santa hasn't come yet, buddy. Probably because Jimmy and I haven't gone to bed yet."

Max just stared at her. "I'm sorry, _what!?_ How could you have not gone to sleep yet? You _know_ that Santa only comes when we're all _sleeping,_ right?"

With a nod and a smile, Stephanie stuck out her left hand, moving her ring finger about emphatically. "We were a little busy."

Kimmy's scream was identical to hers, and she laughed, loudly, louder than was probably necessary, but she didn't care. DJ gasped and held onto Matt's arm for support, as if she were about to fall over in shock. "Oh, my Lanta."

DJ hugged her first and it was long, tight, and Stephanie inhaled the smell of her skin and hair, vanilla, always vanilla, and right away she felt comforted, like she'd made the right choice in saying yes. Not that she ever doubted it even for a second, but still.

"My little sister is getting married."

"The squirt is all grown up," Kimmy said, joining in DJ's hug and leaving a smacking kiss against her head.

Before she knew it, everybody else was joining in on the hug.

"Welcome to the Gibbler clan, Aunt Stephanie." Ramona said to her, and Stephanie thanked her, running a hand over top her head and through her hair.

"Thank you, Ramona. Woah. I officially have a niece. That's weird. Great. But weird."

Everybody laughed and squeezed tighter, and Stephanie was overwhelmed by everything that was the Tanner-Fuller- _Gibbler_ magic.

…

"Steph?" DJ asked her a little while later when they were sitting on couch, legs tucked under them coffee and Bailey's warming their fingertips. "Did I ever tell you how Tom and I met? Like the real story? Not the one you heard at our wedding."

Stephanie turned to her sister, puzzled. "Um, no, I don't think so…" She blew carefully on her drink, the steam humid and thick, hot against her face as she held it against her lips, but the feeling made her think of happy thoughts, of winter, of Christmas, of her ring, of the man who gave her the ring, and just about love, in general. "Do tell."

DJ smirked at her and set her cup down on one of the strategically placed coasters on the coffee table. The Danny Tanner that was inside of her would always be inside of her. And it amused Stephanie to no end a lot of the time. She mimicked her now and waited for her to speak.

"Well, it was sophomore year of college and you know Steve and I had just broken up, okay it had been two years, and I had made some new friends and they liked to have fun and I – "

"Didn't," Stephanie interjected, smiling slightly.

"Hey, I had some fun okay," DJ defended, while Stephanie just laughed. "Not the kind of fun the rest of us had."

DJ huffed. "Just because I didn't come home drunk and half-passed out at 4AM like some people," she gave Stephanie a pointed look, who blushed, because looking back, she really wasn't proud of the shit she did as a teenager. Gia had only instigated half of it. "- Doesn't mean I didn't have _fun._

Tom took me home from this party and we had a great connection and I was only a little tipsy and one thing led to another and I slept with him."

Stephanie gasped, and then laughed. "Holy _wow_ , you had a one-night stand, and that one-night stand ended up being your fricken _husband?"_

DJ nodded.

"Only Donna Jo Tanner could pull that off," she rolled her eyes, giving her sister a shove. "How?"

"He called me the next morning. To make sure I was, you know, feeling okay."

"But you weren't even that drunk, right?"

DJ cringed, smiling sheepishly. "Uh, I may have over-sold the tipsy bit."

"Jesus." Stephanie whistled through her teeth. "I did not see that one coming. But I mean you guys didn't even follow the one - night stand rules: you don't call, you don't text, no meet-ups. Nothing. So does it count?"

"Yes." DJ stated, rolling her eyes now.

"No," Stephanie countered, sparkling laughter coming from her mouth. "But nice try with the street cred."

 ** _January 1st, 2020_**

"I am never drinking again," DJ groaned, sinking into the barstool at the kitchen counter, head in her hands.

"Copy that," Kimmy said with the same suffering inflection, and sitting down next to her.

Soon after, Matt and Jimmy followed suit, and Jackson came and went from the kitchen, mumbling to Max – "mom's hung over oh my god," to which Max replied "what's hungover?" with a curious and worried expression on his face as he trailed after his brother. "Wait, I forgot breakfast!"

"Breakfast is cancelled," DJ mumbled into her hands and Stephanie just laughed, bouncing a giggly Tommy on her hip.

"Coming right up, Max-y Moo," and Max shot her a toothy grin. "And don't worry about your mom; she's just a little worse for wear today, that's all."

DJ glared at her in response. Being pregnant was weird. She traded hangovers for morning sickness. She used to think the morning (all day) sickness was worse, but one look at her poor sister and she changed her answer.

Jimmy came over and pressed himself against her back, holding her belly in his hands. "You're going to be the best Mommy ever, Aunt Steph," he told her, leaving a kiss on the shell of her ear.

 ** _January 21_** ** _st_** ** _, 2020_**

Stephanie was lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, trying to count the exact number of scratches she could spot from the decades of life lived in this house, from the nights slept, and the days spent, in this very room. So far, she counted twenty, losing her place, and forgetting which of them she'd counted, every time a nearly unbearable pain came over her lower abdomen. Every ten minutes.

She didn't expect this to happen yet. It wasn't supposed to. Actually, she wasn't _ever_ supposed to experience labor in her lifetime, but clearly, somebody had other plans. She'd like to think that it was her mother, who gave her the _agonizing_ chance to have a child, to give birth like a woman of her age was meant to, to hold her own baby, to parent her own child, to _love_ it just like she loved her nephews, but, with no intended offense to the boys, _even more._ It was a dream she'd long ago given up, when she'd been told there was no way, that her body just wasn't fit to have children. That _she_ wasn't fit to have them.

Some days, this made her feel as if she wasn't fit to be a mother – not like her sister. DJ was the best mother, her Dad always said that she was just like _their_ mother, and Stephanie felt cheapened. Their mother was alive long enough to have a real bond with her older sister; to teach her girly things like how to deal with your, unexpected, in DJ's case, period, and how to talk to your crush, and through virtuous example, how to be an _amazing_ _mother._ Before Stephanie could learn any of these things, her mother died. The last thing she remembered learning from her was: _"always hold my hand when crossing the street, little monkey. Or you could get very hurt."_

What use _that_ was, when she was twelve and struggled to put in a tampon in the girl's bathroom; when she was fifteen, and went on her first real date with a bore of a boy, the third baseman on the varsity team with the wavy, long hair; when she was sixteen and got supremely wasted at Mickey's end-of-the-year party and was throwing up in the front rosebushes for over an hour; when she was twenty-three and babysat a four year old Jackson alone for the first time and he choked on a piece of hotdog, and then when she was thirty-two, sitting in her doctor's office, squeezing her own hand because there was nobody else's for her to squeeze, as she was told that she couldn't have kids.

At this moment though, when another violent contraction tore through her, what her mother told her that day – the day of the night she died – was worth something. It had such value, now, when, in a matter of, probably _hours_ but what she _felt_ as _minutes,_ Stephanie was going to have her _own_ baby to raise. She would be telling them things like _don't drink the pool water, don't bite other children, even if they_ _ **are**_ _playing with your favorite toy_ (she had a history of doing that) and of course, _don't cross the street without holding Mommy's hand._

"Oh…fuck me…" she hissed, clutching her abdomen and leaning further back into her pillow. "JIMMY GIBBLER GET YOUR FUCKING ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" Stephanie screamed, really, really glad her nephews weren't around to hear her, because she's said enough shit around them back in their younger years, and hers, when she was as far from sober as a person could get; things that had made her cringe and apologize profusely to her older sister for the next morning, and are still making her cringe now.

"GIBBLER, YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT! I'M HAVING OUR BABY AND YOU ARE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN OR HEARD– AS IN NOT HERE. WITH ME! YOU LITTLE IGNORANT – "

The pain subsided for a second, and in that second, she was able to have a clear head and think rationally. With this new rationality came fear, because it was what made her remember that Jimmy wasn't home either. He'd gone out to get her one of those fancy nursing shirts that they'd seen a few days ago. She didn't even have time to feel awful for cursing him, or time to feel stupid for yelling at nobody, because another, longer lasting contraction hit her full force, and with no preamble.

"Jesus Christ Almighty," she groaned. "I know you're ready to come out, Baby. But you've gotta wait for Daddy, okay?"

In response, her body was graced with another contraction five minutes or so later as if it were pertinaciously taking a stance against her mind. Nobody was waiting for anybody. She knew that, _loud and clear,_ now.

"Okay….oookaaay. Do not panic," she mumbled to herself, reaching for her phone on the nightstand and pressing speed dial.

 _"_ _Jimmy Gibbler! Leave a message and I'll call you back –only if I remember. Hahaha. I'm serious, I'm really forgetful."_

"Agh!" she cried, punching '2' and waiting for the ring.

 _"_ _You've reached DJ Fuller! If I'm not answering your call, it's because I'm busy at the moment, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Leave your message at the –_ _ **beep."**_

"Are you kidding me, Deej? Great time to do a craniotomy on a dog," she grumbled bitterly, not even caring if that wasn't in fact what her sister was doing. She could be stitching up a cat's paw for all that she knew, or even on her lunch break. The fact still remained that she wasn't answering her phone, and when her little sister was in crisis, to boot.

Pressing '3' she sighed, expecting another normative voicemail, which is exactly what she got.

 _"_ _This is Danny Tanner's phone, co-host of Wake up USA! For business inquires, contact the station. If you're family, I'll call you as soon as I get this message you're leaving."_

"Are you for real? God, are you honestly telling me that I have to go through this alone!?" she exclaimed towards the ceiling, when she pressed '4' – the last digit of her speed dial.

"Uncle Jesse!? Are you a real person? This isn't your voicemail!? Okay I'm in labor and Jimmy's not here and DJ is at the clinic I think and Dad's not answering either, he might be sleeping or something I don't know, and I'm really freaking out here because I absolutely cannot – "

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down, kid. What's going on?"

Stephanie heard the hysteria in her voice the moment she opened her mouth, and it only escalated with each word she spoke, as if she were on Ritalin or something, but it wouldn't stop. She took a deep breath, which only made her start to cry.

"I can't do this, Uncle Jesse. I'm going to have this baby alone, in my bedroom. But I don't want to!" She sounded like a despondent child, and she wanted to kick herself for that. She was a strong woman, dammit.

"Okay, Steph. Just breathe. Becky asked me to ask you how far apart your contractions are."

"They're about ten minutes? I don't know. I just know that I can't wait any longer. I'm in so much pain!"

The line went quiet for a second, and Stephanie thought her phone had died and began to seriously panic.

"Steph?"

"Aunt Becky?"

"Yes, honey, it's me. Are you breathing through them?"

She grimaced and gasped as another one threatened to dominate her entire body, as pain tinged hotly across her abdomen and pelvic region.

"Trying to," she sputtered, regaining only minimal composure, still cognizant enough to speak in short sentences, the pain alleviating just barely.

"That's good. Really good, sweetheart," Becky told her. "So Jimmy's not answering his phone? You're alone?"

"Yes," she said, holding her breath as the end of the intense pain turned into only extreme discomfort. "Can you come get me and drive me to the hospital?"

"Of course. Jess and I will be there as soon as we can. Can you hold out till we get there?"

"I think so."

"Okay. I'll keep trying to call Jimmy. You just relax. I'm going to make sure he's there for the birth of his child. You don't worry about a thing, baby girl."

Stephanie smiled. Her Aunt Becky hadn't called her _baby girl_ since she was seventeen, and put in the hospital overnight for observation after having acute alcohol poisoning. She could clearly remember moaning about the pain she was in after her stomach pump, groggy and still under mild influence of anesthesia.

 _Her dad was so_ _ **angry**_ _at her, as upset as she's ever seen him, and he wasn't in the room. He was at home with Michelle, making her promise that she would never ever drink alcohol until she was of age and responsible enough to know her limitations. DJ was finishing her last semester of college before summer, and Uncle Jesse was at home with the twins. But Aunt Becky insisted on staying._

 _She didn't yell, or give her looks of disapproval, she just seemed sad, staring at Stephanie's damp cheeks and sweat ridden forehead, zeroing in on her tell of the quivering lip that said she was about to break._

 _Before Stephanie could manage an 'I'm so,_ _ **so,**_ _sorry," through the dryness of her throat, her aunt spoke, absolving her of the apology._

 _"_ _It's_ _ **okay,**_ _baby girl. You were naive, sure, stupid_ _ **, of course,**_ _but that doesn't mean we love you any less. Your dad will come around. I promise. He was just so sick with worry about you – we all were. We weren't sure what the outcome of tonight was going to be. We just held our breath. But you're here, now, with us. And you've learned your lesson. That's what matters here, right?"_

 _Stephanie nodded, but stayed quiet, fearing that anything she said would set her aunt off too, like it did her father and uncle, earlier._

 _"_ _That's not to say you aren't grounded till you're thirty – sorry Steph," she smirked, sharing in the joke that wasn't outright acknowledged by either of them, "Someone had to say it."_

 _"_ _I understand. And Aunt Becky?"_

 _"_ _Yes?"_

 _Stephanie reached over the bedrail to grasp the woman's hand and weakly squeeze it. "Thank you for staying. And not screaming at me. Being reasonable."_

 _"_ _You're welcome."_

 _"_ _And thank you for being my mother figure when I needed you. When I still need you. It means so much, Aunt Becky. I love you."_

 _Becky smiled, though it was a faint outline of the real thing, the rest of it getting lost in the fluorescent lighting of the room, and thoughts of the unfortunate circumstance that had them here in the first place._

 _"_ _I love you too. I'm glad to be, and I'm always here, whenever you need me. Know that, baby girl. Okay? It's important to me that you do."_

 _"_ _I do. Don't worry."_

Stephanie willed the memory away and another contraction shackled her with a sharp, stabbing pain.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, _ow_ ….why, why, why, _why!"_

Just then, her uncle came bursting through the door at an alarming speed. " _Oh, Stephanie…_ Jimmy's on his way, baby, I promise you. We got a hold of him."

Stephanie gave him a pathetic half-smile. She didn't want his sweet endearment to go unacknowledged, as rare as it was with her.

"Thanks, Uncle Jesse. Can you help me get to the car while I'm contraction-free?"

"Sure, sure. I – uh – here."

Jesse lifted her into his arms, pressing her as softly as he could against his chest, enough so that she wouldn't be jostled too much on the way.

When he placed her gently into the passenger seat, he gingerly kissed her forehead. "You can hold my hand the whole way there, if you want to."

His words came out a little awkward, but they were pure in their intention. Their bond had gotten stronger after Stephanie's fourteenth birthday and she'd kind of sort of flew off the handle a little bit, when DJ went to college.

She was finally the older one in a house with just her and Michelle, and relished in that standing, in the generational, socially constructed conventions that went along with it. She skipped the cigarettes, dabbled with the non-addictive drugs; but the torrid love affair was really between her and alcohol. Being tipsy gave her an _edge._ Being _drunk_ gave her the upper hand. And Stephanie wished and wished for the day, ever since she was five years old and forced to share a room with her ten year old, grown up sister, when she could finally say what was what. And who was where. It provided her with an adrenaline and energy she had no idea how to handle, but even so, as she had one drink, then two, then three, the way became clearer. She became more confident in her decisions, bolder, riskier, as she kissed boys with tongue and whipped them around the dance floor like she was the leader, and they, were the ones following.

When she was in the thick of it – the second time she'd been caught coming home reeking obnoxiously of booze, and the time after that, when she very well could have died from drinking too much, her uncle was the one who set her straight. He told her that all of this high school bullshit would be nothing in a few years, and that it wasn't worth her time, or her wellbeing. He was the one who pushed her into song writing, inspired her to stick with it and maybe one day _be someone_. She swore she'd never stop feeling thankful for that. And she hasn't.

So, when another, lengthy contraction came over her, she squeezed his hand so hard that he had to gripe trivially about loss of feeling in his extremities.

"Okay, Steph. Ease up, buttercup. Save some of that for Gibbler, _huh!"_

"Sorry Uncle Jesse," she apologized, clenching her right fist and intending her palm with her nails, instead of gripping his hand, shutting her eyes and breathing heavy as another contraction became hell bent on pummeling her with the strength of a football team, muscled up on protein shakes and suicides. "It just hurts _so_ much."

"Why do people go through this!?"

"Because, at the end of it, at the end of all of the pain and suffering, that's what matters. _Your baby._ Steph. You're going to be a mother soon, and you're whole life is going to change before you can even say the words _sleep deprivation,_ or even _think_ them. But honey, I'll promise you one thing."

Becky reached her arm across the centre console and touched her shoulder, rubbing along it in slow circles. "You're going to love it. It's a whole new life, and you soon, you won't remember what it was like to _not_ be changing poopy diapers. It's the most rewarding experience a woman could ever have."

Stephanie turned around in her seat as much as her physique would allow, and smiled. "I believe that. Growing up and watching you and Uncle Jesse raise Nicky and Alex into adults, and then watching Deej raise her boys…there's something about it, isn't there? Motherhood. It _changes_ you. It makes you better."

Becky smiled too. "I'd like to think so. And I'm sure if DJ were here, she'd agree. _Oh, sweetheart,_ you're going to be a great mother. And Jimmy will be a great dad. He's so good with your nephews. That baby in there is going to be the luckiest child in the whole world."

She stared down at her belly, putting her palm there, and averting her gaze from her aunt, with a humbling smile.

"I can't wait to meet you in person, Baby. You and Daddy are my family, now, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I love you so much it's _insane._ I didn't even know that the human heart was capable of so much love, until I learned about you."

"You might as well just call the child Francis," Jesse scoffed, though he was smiling. "Seriously, Steph. You and Gibbler ever consider it?"

Stephanie wrinkled her nose, oddly and irrationally offended about his mockery of their chosen, albeit clichéd and predictable, nickname. "No. Never. Gross."

"I was just asking. No need to bite my head off, kiddo. And we're here. How are you feeling? On a scale of 1-10, ten being the worst pain you've ever, ever felt in your _entire life_ , how bad?"

She sighed, having no instant answer, because whatever it was now could change in another second. "Um…a six…I guess…right now. It's – uh- bearable…"

"Okay. That's good. It's not a total panic situation. Let's get you checked in now, shall we?"

Stephanie allowed him to help her out of the car and both he and Becky shouldered her weight as they entered the hospital. In seconds flat, probably due to her sudden, loud, unattractive moaning, she was in a wheelchair and a nurse was pushing her towards an entryway marked _'Labor and Delivery.' This was it._ Her whole nine months of pregnancy, nearly to the day, led up to this. The constant worry that something was wrong, the subsequent sleepless nights, and the overwhelming pain she was feeling right now, would all _stop._ Aside from the sleepless nights. She couldn't help but smile at that last thought. _I'm going to be a mom._

"Aunt Becky?"

"Yeah Steph?"

"I'd like to have you in the room….would you come with me?"

Her aunt put her hand to her mouth before turning to her uncle, then back to her. "Really, Steph? You mean it? You want me to go with you? "

Stephanie tried to smile through the extreme pain that once again threatened to use her insides as a noose to suck every last bit of life out of her.

"More than anything," she managed to say, before taking a deep breath out.

Becky came to stand beside her chair and took her hand, squeezing. It was as though she could sense no affectionate gesture or words could ever fit with the intimacy of this moment. Her aunt leaned in and then before Stephanie could say or feel anything, a pair of lips delicately brushed her forehead, both in comfort and familial love.

"You don't have to ask me twice, baby girl. Let's go give birth."

Just as the nurse began to wheel the chair in their intended direction again, though it was obvious she wasn't as emergent now, which mildly annoyed Stephanie, a loud, panicked voice stopped them again.

 _"_ Steph! Oh thank god you made it! I'm here. I'm here!"

Stephanie whipped her head around to see Jimmy running towards them, and offered him her hand to hold as he got closer. "I'm okay, babe. It's okay. Baby and I are okay."

Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief as he cupped her stomach. "Oh, good. I was so worried. When your uncle called and said you'd went into labor, I couldn't drive the RV here fast enough."

By now, they had been put in a room, and Stephanie had gotten as comfortable as she was ever going to get on the bed. The nurse had checked her vitals as a precaution due to her pregnancy being high risk, and told them she would go get their doctor.

"Speaking of which, how in the world did you even park that monstrosity of a vehicle?"

He flinched, shaking his head. "Uh, you don't really want to know the details. Trust me. Besides, we have a bigger issue on our hands."

Massaging small circles into her belly, he kissed her head. "Isn't that right, Baby? Daddy can't wait to see you – the real you – not the grainy ultrasound image of you."

As Jimmy was talking, two more contractions, nearly in succession, hit her, _hard._ "Oh, _shit._ Ow, ow, _ow!_ That was two at the same time. "

"Do you need me to get the – "

Before he could finish his sentence, their doctor knocked lightly and then came in through the door, after getting the okay. He proceeded to check how dilated she was, sensing, when she'd told him that she'd just had two contractions practically in a row, that there was no time for inane small talk.

Stephanie looked up at her aunt, who was standing on the other side of her head, opposite of Jimmy. She wanted someone to tell her what was happening, and since her aunt had been through this once already, there was a good chance she knew.

"Aunt Becky, what's – "

"Stephanie," her doctor interjected, peeking up from in between her legs. She didn't even have time to think about how awkward it all was before he told her not to be nervous. "It's time to push. Right now."

…

Twenty minutes. That's all it took. Twenty minutes and her body was able to go slack as she lay back in the bed, holding her Baby – her baby _girl_ – on her chest. When one of the nurses told them that it was a girl, Stephanie couldn't help but think that the ratio of boys to girls in the Fuller House would now be a little less imbalanced. Ramona would finally have someone to mentor (or manipulate, depending on the day).

Of course, she was surprised, and laughed about how pissed DJ was going to be, that Stephanie got the girl and she didn't, but she was also strangely intimidated by the reality of having a daughter; she wasn't old enough to _really_ remember what it was like when her mom was alive, and couldn't take guidance from her then, or now, on how she was raising _three_ girls, let alone just one. Her Aunt Becky raised boys, and so was her sister. Her father would have a completely different perspective on raising girls, as would her Uncle Jesse and Joey, and while it would be helpful, it wasn't what she would feel solaced by. She wanted her mom's advice, her opinion, her tips and tricks. She wanted _her._

Stephanie wiped a fallen tear from her cheek and stared down in awe at her baby. The infant looked back up at her with sweet doe eyes, the color of a fawn. They were eyes that could get her in trouble come her teenaged years, as beautiful as they were. Those were eyes that could make _anyone_ do _anything_ faster than the speed of light, and if blinked at just the right speed, in conjunction with a nearly imperceptible yawn, they could make someone fall in love – a love that took a tight hold of every cell in your body, and would never let go, an all-consuming love that occupied your thoughts every single second of every single day, and every single night, so that there was no room for anything else. _She_ was all that mattered, now.

"Isn't she gorgeous, babe?"

Jimmy grinned, trailing his pinky finger along the cashmere softness of her cheek.

"She's beautiful. I think she looks just like her Mommy." He kissed her gently. "I'm so _, so,_ proud of you. You did it."

Stephanie rubbed his arm that laid across her legs, basking in the compliment with a smile. " _We_ did it. We actually made one of these little baby people together."

He sighed, watching the baby as she gripped his finger in her whole fist. "She's _ours._ "

"She's our miracle," Stephanie said ruminatively, thinking back on everything, still having trouble believing it actually happened for her – for them – and this moment, right now, wasn't just a figment of late-night-caffeine-induced dreams.

"And you're sure you like the name?"

She wondered if Becky had told the rest of the family the baby's gender. Probably. After the baby was born, and the cord was cut and her height and weight was charted, Becky insisted that the couple needed their privacy and left the room to alert the family of the arrival of its newest member; not before whispering to her that she did _great._

"Yeah. I love it, Steph. It's obviously a sign. It's the first one we thought of."

She wasn't convinced, even if it was _a sign._ Some things just aren't signs, even if they _seem_ like it. "It's the _only_ one."

"Steph. I'll say it again. I love it. And I think she does too. When you said it, she opened her eyes. If that's not a sign – "

"They _barely_ opened. It was like she was squinting. It was probably just gas or something. I don't know," she sighed. "What about her middle name? Are you _sure_ you're okay with it? I'd understand if – "

Jimmy shushed her, taking her face in his hands and forcing her to look at him, straight on. "Stephanie. What's wrong? You absolutely loved the name the first time you suggested it to me. You knew what you wanted her name to be even before she was born, _if_ she was a girl. Which she _is_. So why are you hesitating, sweetheart?"

She sighed again, fighting to turn away from him, but he wouldn't let her, not taking her silence as a placation. "Tell me."

"I don't know. It's just…suddenly…naming this baby, this little person who I love more than my _own life_ , is just…intimidating. I want it to be perfect. I want her to grow up comfortable in her own skin. I don't want her to have the first letter of her last name tacked onto her name for her entire school career because there's more than one or two girls with her name in her class, but I don't want her to be made fun of on the playground, either. If I choose wrong, then it's all my fault. I'm her _mother,_ I'm supposed to be making the best decisions on behalf of her, before she is capable to make them by herself."

Jimmy kissed her forehead. "Exactly, Stephy Bear. You're her _mother_. You're the _one_ person she'll turn to for everything. And you'll never steer her wrong.

"You'll teach her what to do, and not what _not_ to do. She'll trust you with all of her secrets, all of her hopes, dreams, and fears. She'll want to grow up to be just like you, because you'll be her biggest fan and role model. No decision you make for or with her, no advice you give to her, from this moment, will be bad, or _wrong_.

"I know you don't think so, but I _know_ so. You were obviously destined to be her mother, to be that person for her, so don't think too hard on the little things, and just let your heart dictate.

"Isn't there a name for that?"

Stephanie furrowed her eyebrows. "Following your heart?"

"That's not it." He glanced meaningfully at her, and then she realized that he knew, but was just waiting for her to figure it out.

"A mother's intuition," she said, smiling, her mouth sloping naturally in thought. "Right…well, should we call everybody else in here to meet she who now officially has a name?"

Jimmy nodded. "I'll round them up. The whole crew's taking up the entire waiting area." He laughed as he stood, kissing both mother and baby on his way out.

Stephanie reciprocated his kiss with little energy, still physically drained, as well as emotionally, from the obstetrical feat of childbirth.

Not five minutes later the rest of the family piled into the room. Stephanie grinned at their entrance. She saw her father standing beside Joey, both men looking teary and barely keeping it together; she saw her Uncle Jesse and the twins, with two year old Pamela, now beside her aunt who was smiling, with similar expressions; she saw DJ trying to hold Max back by the collar of his shirt as he tried to make a beeline for the bed to see his cousin, because he _just can't wait any longer!;_ she saw Kimmy, Fernando and Ramona clustered together in amongst the group, looking as _in place_ as no Gibbler has ever before in her life, save from her boyfriend, and next to them was Jimmy, who looked as though he were a puppy dog who desperately wanted to be next to her again, and so she called him over.

Grabbing his hand, she kissed it. "Babe, are you ready to tell everyone her name?" she asked, as Max exclaimed "Yes! Please just _tell us_ already!"

She laughed. "Okay. Everyone, we are proud to introduce you to Lillian Rebecca Gibbler. She's twenty inches long and weighs six pounds, three ounces. And I'm going to gamble here and say her feet are about a half size. Not one. Just one half."

There was a quiet laughter as they all took it in. Took _Lillian_ in.

"Wait, Steph, are you serious? Her middle name's Rebecca? As in _me,_ Rebecca?"

Stephanie nodded, yes. "Aunt Becky, ever since you came into my life – our lives, you've been that person for me, the mother for me that I knew I needed, and wanted, but never truly had, because my own left us all too soon. And I love you for that. Thank you for stepping up, without overstepping. And Lily…she has a piece of you with her, and I hope that she'll be as bonded to you in time as I am. I really love our relationship, it's so special to me and I love _you_ and – "

Stephanie couldn't say anymore, due to both an onslaught of strong emotions and the fabric of her aunt's sweater covering her mouth as she'd bent down to hug her, _tight._ As tight as she could ever remember being hugged, and as a Tanner, she'd grown up being in receipt of those left and right, while giving out her fair share.

"Aunt Becky, watch the baby," she whispered, but she knew her aunt wasn't stupid, knew that her body wasn't even close to hurting her daughter there on her chest, but it was more of a matter of _her_ survival. She could barely breathe.

"Sorry," Becky apologized, leaning back from her. "I love you too, Steph. More than you can even imagine. I love that we can talk about anything, and that you trust me…and this is going to sound corny, but I needed you too, baby girl.

"You, and your two other beautiful sisters, gave me the confidence to be a mother to Nicky and Alex, because I'd sort of done it with you. I can never replace the one and only Pamela Tanner, never, ever, and I know you know that, but I still want you to know how touched I am."

"Enough to suffocate me," she remarked, desperate suddenly to lighten the mood.

It worked. Everyone laughed, and then there was a fight about who was going to hold the baby first. She shook her head. Her family was one _wild_ bunch.

"No pushing, no shoving, and no touching without hand sanitizer," Stephanie told them, and winked at her aunt before getting Jimmy to place the baby in her readied arms.

"Oh, _Stephanie,"_ Becky sighed, staring down at the baby, asleep, with not a wrinkle of thought in the dainty, porcelain features of her face. Lily was blissfully unaffected by her surroundings and the people around her; it was as though she already knew them all somehow, and drew, from their presence, comforting peace that allowed for uninterrupted sleep.

"You're a rock star. You and Daddy both."

Stephanie smiled up at her boyfriend, who squeezed her shoulder. "We are, aren't we? Our little baby person is quite the looker, if I do say so myself. And I do," she giggled.

"That's because her Mommy is the most beautiful woman on the planet," he told her, giving her cheek a smack-inducing kiss.

"Don't you sell yourself short, babe. You're the most attractive Gibbler out of them all. Not including our girl."

She gave Kimmy and Ramona a teasing smirk, noticing that the baby had been passed from DJ to Kimmy when she wasn't paying attention, and that Kimmy was now giving Lily much the same look that everyone else who'd held her had given. She hadn't even heard Stephanie's comment, and neither had her daughter, apparently, because there wasn't a reaction.

"So, she's a Gibbler?" Kimmy asked, cooing at the infant in her arms.

For over two years, hearing the name hasn't made her flinch, or have the sudden and intense urge to vomit; now that it was the name of the man she loved like no other person, and the name attached to her sweet little girl, her natural instinct when hearing it, was to smile. And proudly, at that.

"She's a Gibbler."

" _Half_ Gibbler. She's half Tanner too." DJ interjected, and Stephanie laughed at her sister's insistence of this.

It was as far from blithe as one could ever get. Even though she was now legally a Fuller, and has been since 2005, her older sister was oddly attached to her maiden name, felt as though it _meant_ something, something _important,_ to be a Tanner. As a Tanner herself, Stephanie felt it too, but there was also something exciting, an out-of-the-box feeling, that she could only assume was attached to the Gibbler name, and more than anything, if only to be closer in that way to Jimmy and their daughter, she wanted to know what it was like. _Soon._

"It's already been discussed. And yes, she is half Tanner, but she'll be half Tanner _in her heart,_ because her name is not being hyphenated," Stephanie said with laugh. "It'd be too long and sound too awkward."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note: I found this in my drive. I wonder how much I would find if I actively went through it one of these days. Hm. Anyway, this is a fic about how the girls (well one of them) started calling Becky 'Aunt Becky' – we never really got to see it on the show. But I always wondered, so I wrote this!**_

Becky couldn't bare to see the hurt in that little girl's eyes, as she tried in vain to protest it. She was so small, so fragile and unexposed to all the hate and spite in the world, and Becky hated to see that turn for her so young. It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have had to endure the loss of her mother in the first place, much less everything else, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that comes with that. She wouldn't know, but it must be a lot. It shouldn't be resting on shoulders so tiny and delicate. And she would make sure of that.

"Steph, I'd be honored to go to that slumber party with you."

Stephanie's eyes lit up, happiness clearly written within her cute, little features. She didn't seem to hold that particular aversion to sleeping on the floor now, instead, it was as if she'd forgotten it had even existed.

"Really!? You'd do that for me!? We're sleeping on the floor! Yay!"

Becky grinned back at her, accepting of her tight hug. She was a surprisingly good hugger for someone with such a petite body. Becky pursed her lips tentatively against the side of her little blonde head, curls tickling her nose a bit.

Normally, she wasn't shy in offering up affection to anyone who wanted it, and while that wasn't meant to make her sound easy, it was true. She was an affectionate person. It was her love language. Touch. And she loved these girls, in the least perverse way, she loved these three, beautiful, smart, adorable little girls, like they were her own.

She'd been around the house so often these days, now spending more nights in Jesse's bedroom than her own apartment, she was as good as moved in, just like the two of them were as good as married. In saying that though, and as much as she loved and appreciated her newly acquired family, she would never push any sort of familial title onto herself.

Sure, Jesse was their uncle and she was his fiancée so that would make her something a little more intimate than the woman who shows up on their uncle's arm to family dinners every once and awhile, or sometimes accompanying him to pick the girls up from school.

And sure, she's picked them up from school herself from time to time, assuring Michelle's pre-school teacher that she wasn't some stranger interested in child-napping. But none of this meant that any of the girls, any one of his nieces, needed to feel obligated to call her something. Although she'd love it If they did – Auntie Bec, Auntie B, etcetera, she sure as heck didn't need it to feel validated, to feel any more loved and cared for by these girls, because she already knew that they loved her. Auntie or not.

So, she's made peace, and just as she let go of Stephanie, giving her a small smile as she pulled back, she realized that Stephanie had yet to let go of her wrist. _Hm._

"Steph do you want me to – "

She was going to say _'stay and talk some more'_ but the words died in her throat.

"Um - I was actually just wondering if – uh – "

Becky held her breath, her face hopefully hiding her sudden concern well enough to go unnoticed. "What's that, honey?"

Stephanie exhaled a big whoosh of air. Looks like she wasn't the only one holding her breath. Then, words came out in a tumbled rush, quick and breathless.

"I was wondering if I could call you Aunt Becky. Cause uh – you're gonna marry Uncle Jesse and I – I want to cause I love you and I – people in my class have aunties and I've never had one and it seems like a cool thing to have and I want you to be my aunt and you're getting married to Uncle Jesse so it works right so can I call you Aunt Becky?"

Becky put a hand to her mouth. She felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. "Oh, sweetheart," she cooed, taking Stephanie's two hands and closing them in a fist. "Of course, you can."

Stephanie grinned at her. Clearly, the gravity of the situation was much less for her as it was for Becky. "Okay, cool!"

"Okay…cool," Becky let the word slide around in her mouth a few seconds before she said it out loud, testing it. She didn't want to make a huge deal out of it, so the word seemed to suit the situation fine. And so, she decided to go with it. "Yeah, that's cool."

Then, she cringed. _A little too casual there, Bec,_ she admonished herself with a mental eye roll. She wouldn't make a big deal in front of her soon-to-be niece, but in front of her soon-to-be-husband, in-law, and pseudo in-law, was another story altogether. Inside, she actually wanted to scream.

Just as Becky was leaving the room, Stephanie's voice, soft and a little shy, stopped her midstride. "Aunt Becky?"

Becky turned around. "Yeah, honey?"

Stephanie gave her a smile that matched the tone of her voice. "I'm glad you're coming to the Honey Bees slumber party with me. I love you."

"Awe, Steph," she cooed, pulling her close to her one more time and inhaling the strawberry scent of her freshly washed hair and the soft, soapy smell of her skin. "I love you too, baby girl."

Stephanie let her go then and she left the room, taking the stairs twice at a time (a little regretfully because she nearly slipped more than once). Once she got to the landing, she wasted no time before she launched herself into Jesse's arms, who was standing with both Danny and Joey in the kitchen. She figured that the two other girls must be in the living room.

"Hey there, Bec," he purred, running his hand through her hair as he looked over at her. "What's gotten into you?'

"You really wanna know!?" she asked, and she heard it in her voice, the blatant, unabashed glee. "Stephanie just asked if she could start calling me Aunt Becky!"

"Oh honey," Jesse said, kissing the top of her head. "That's great."

She saw the look on his face – relief and unadulterated happiness. It was much more than great, to him, she knew that. It was everything he dreamed of. Sure, Jesse Katsopolis may seem shallow or vain or what have you when you first meet him, but in truth, he is a warm, soft, family man and all he wanted in his dream woman, besides perfect hair and a shapely body (she would admit that bits of what one would assume about him are half-truths), was one who his nieces loved and adored just as much as he did.

"Yeah Becky," Danny echoed, "I'm so happy that the girls are already feeling so connected to you. They need a mother figure in their lives and I for one am so glad that you're it." He smiled.

She leaned further into Jesse's side and smiled back at him. "That means a lot coming from you. But I doubt anybody's happier about it than me. Seriously. I love those girls like they're my own."

Jesse chuckled and kissed her head again. He grinned at her. "I told you she's the one, boys."


End file.
